since high school for anyone interestedI thought I'd write down a bit about my life since high school (over 26 years now) (!) in a very abbreviated form. After high school I spent a year at Bridgeton Academy, a post graduate prep school, taking college level courses simply because I didn't do very well in high school and wasn't ready to figure out college yet. I then spent a year at Castleton State College in Vermont where I studied art and business with an eye toward a dual degree. That was a fun year and I spent a lot of time skiing on the nordic team but I found the art program lacking in rigor. I then got a summer job at a civil engineering firm in Portland, ME which turned into a 15 month gig. Then I applied to architecture school. (what I had wanted to do all along but never thought I could get in) There wasn't much to choose from in terms of architecture schools back then for a poor kid from rural Maine. I went to the architecture school at Roger Williams University and found the rigor and intensity that I had been looking for. I did very well and graduated from Roger Williams with a Bachelor of Architecture 5 year professional degree (BArch) 8 years after high school. After all that time in school, I graduated with considerable debt in the form of credit cards and student loans. Which meant no Europe for me - I had to get a job and fast. I had sent out a million resumes and had an interview at a small firm in Brattleboro, Vermont before I actually graduated. I immediately fell in love with Brattleboro and packed up my van the day after graduation, came to Vermont and lived in a campground until I found a small apartment. I worked at the Brattleboro firm for a year and realized that I really needed to build for a while to better understand how to be an architect. This led to the next 6 years or so working for a small building firm designing and building several new houses and a myriad of smaller projects. I tell people that this was my version of graduate school. Periodically, I took time to work for other architecture firms, pecking away at the internship required before sitting for all the exams necessary to become an architect. Demand for my design skills led to full time work before I had my license and over the past decade I have been mostly self-employed doing design work and occasional general contracting. Much of my work comes from local builders with whom I've worked in the past and much comes from my internet presence including this blog. Although I sometimes regret not heading into Boston or New York, wearing only black clothing and small rectangly glasses and working for a hip and cool firm before heading north into Vermont, I am mostly satisfied with my choice.
