Impact of Studio Culture on Student Well-Being
Impact
of Studio Culture on Student Well-Being
Studio culture is essential for architecture
students. Studios train students regarding respect, intellectual engagement,
experimentation, cooperation, collaboration, and time management. Architecture
is a technical, aesthetic, and social discipline in scope. The capacity
for synthetic problem-solving is best taught and understood in the context of
design studio work. Skills like research, conceptualization, drawing, and
model-making are exercised. Students are encouraged to implement knowledge from
all subjects, such as building construction materials, history, building
services, and professional practice. Studio work is a collaborative process
among teachers, fellow students, and visiting critics. The studio promotes
creativity, innovation, and discovery. The studio also teaches students to take
responsibility for their designs and to be able to present and defend their
work when questioned or judged.
Benefits of
Studio Culture
·
Supports intellectual
curiosity.
·
Ground for multiple
points of view.
·
Promotes
cooperative understanding.
·
Guidance
from the mentors.
·
Exposure to
new ideas and constructive criticism.
·
Group-based
assignments encourage collaboration.
·
Teaches the
coexistence of contradictory viewpoints.
·
Students
learn to be professional and confident while presenting.
Impact on students
As mentioned above, the benefits of studio
classes are plentiful, but so are the drawbacks. Studios are meant to be a
place of cooperative learning and interactive classes but with time, they have
become just burdensome assignments that come with fatigue and stress. The studio
is supposed to be where the work is done, but with increasing assignments and
not enough studio hours, eventually, the majority of the work becomes
homework. The professors have unrealistic expectations and wish the
students could complete a week’s worth of work in a day. Though design is an
important subject, it is not the only one that students have to deal with. The
professors don't seem to realize that and keep pounding students with
assignments for every subject.
The gigantic number of submissions and unreasonable deadlines ruin students' work-life balance. Students who are just in their teens and at the prime age to socialize and explore the world are stuck at homes or colleges completing their submissions. This even restricts architecture students from going out and exploring real architecture and gaining some practical knowledge. Students don't even have the time to have a proper chat with their parents, let alone seek out time to intern at a firm and acquire work experience. This pattern, in due course, ruins a student's ability to interact with others, making them introverts who lack social manners. Students, after passing out of their respective colleges, realize that they have zero idea of the real world of architecture and have hit the harsh pit of reality.
These endless assignments also have
significant impacts on a child's health. To complete the assignments, students
usually stay up late and barely get a healthy amount of sleep. The majority of
architecture students survive on 2-3 hours of sleep a day. During final
submissions, students can't even afford that many hours of sleep. They just
function like zombies sustained on energy drinks and coffee. Not sure how
students in these conditions can give their best and be presentable, but that's
the way architecture students exist right now. A person cannot live a healthy
life with such a random and obnoxious sleep pattern. This is bound to have
long-term effects that will lead to weak, depressed, lonely, and frustrated
architects of our future cities.
Working unhealthy hours also have poor effects
on a student's diet. With being so busy and engrossed in work, students usually
forget to have meals at their regular times. Over time, studios and completing
submissions all the time force students to eat whatever's easily available at
hand, and that mostly includes oily, fried, street food. Students living alone
away from family find sanctuary in fast food because they neither have the time
nor energy to cook something. Feasting on Maggie and toxic food leads to an
obese and unhealthy lifestyle for architecture students. With such hectic
schedules, they can't even find time to work out or exercise to take care of
themselves. These practices result in overweight teens which has adverse
effects on their confidence and mental health.
Conclusion
Studios that keep students laboring for unreal
hours make them exhausted and miserable. Students lose track of time, sleep,
food, friends, family, and everything else. They don't even realize this until
it's too late. This unhealthy lifestyle leads to burnt-out kids who have lost
all flair for architecture and are just managing to complete the course for the
sake of a degree. Some students even drop the course and change fields.
Studios should not be conducted so awfully.
Studios should be fun and a good learning experience. Studios should motivate
students to become great architects, not drive them towards quitting
architecture. Studios should be student-centric and designed to cater to their
time and needs. Faculty should focus on students' efficiency and speed rather
than the completion of the syllabus. Studios should not extend until after
hours, and the work shouldn't be carried on to be completed at home but rather
moved to the next studio. These students are the future, and they can't be busy
stressing about homework; there are many important aspects of life in this
world. These students are the youth of our society and they have a much bigger
duty towards our nation and world but they won't be of any help if they are
stuck at home drafting sheets for the nth time. Also, these
students are going to design the future so it's important to keep them in good
shape, both physically and mentally.
By Isha Mutha
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