Each year, local professional offices receive dozens of requests from hopeful students seeking summer intern positions. In past summers, NK Architects has hosted a selection of students in “traditional” intern programs – where the students gained experience by helping out staff on whichever projects needed extra attention in the office. But Stephen Aluotto, NK’s president and principal-in-charge of the firm’s educational projects, saw opportunity for a rethinking of the program.
“Each year we get requests from many of our clients and colleagues to meet with potential summer interns,” says Aluotto. “We thought it would be beneficial to compile a program that is more structured than the ‘traditional’ internship, and to enlist our younger staff in guiding the program.”
At NK, a group of young staff members, deemed the Young Professionals Forum (YPF), meets regularly to discuss the organization, projects, culture, and protocol of the firm. Aluotto formed the YPF to gather insight on NK’s strengths and weaknesses from a fresh perspective. “Our younger staff’s vision of our office environment isn’t as clouded as someone’s who has been working here 20 or 30 years and is used to the status quo,” he says. “They provide thoughts and suggestions that can prove to be beneficial to our leadership. One of my priorities has always been to monitor how we can improve our firm’s internal culture and ‘quality of life.’ I believe this group not only supports successful practice, but ultimately improves our product. Sustaining professional fulfillment and enjoying what we do is part of our mission here at NK.” Now, NK’s young professionals will share that insight with the firm’s summer interns.
These young professionals will get a chance to experience a leadership and mentor role by guiding NK’s 2010 Summer Intern Observation Program. Offered to local high school students who are considering entrance to an accredited school of architecture, the program will be a mini-internship – a compressed, three-day introduction to the inner-workings of a real professional practice.
“A lot of young students aren’t aware of exactly what practicing architecture as a profession involves,” says Jason Lee, a member of NK’s YPF. “Now they’ll get a chance to experience real-world practices firsthand.”
“Architecture is a diverse profession – part art, part science, and part diplomacy,” says Aluotto. “Successful architects must be skilled in these facets and also responsible to their communities and the environment.”
While some internships seem more like a crash-course in filing papers and preparing coffee, NK Architects’ program will immerse its high school participants in the professional world. The program aims to provide a more holistic experience in the industry than in traditional internships – and in a fraction of the time.
The students will learn about the firm’s various disciplines, attend project design meetings, and visit some of the firm’s projects under construction – right alongside NK’s full-time staff. The second day’s agenda calls for the students to complete a full design proposal and present it to the staff in a project pin-up meeting. A member of the YPF will host each component of the schedule to gain leadership experience in guiding the students through each task. The prospective architects will leave NK after three days with a better understanding of the full scale of the industry’s involvement in the design and construction process.
This is a program that not only benefits the participants in giving them a front-row view of an architectural practice. “It also gives our firm’s younger professionals a chance to share their experiences in the profession,” says Aluotto. “I think what these students will gain from this program is a better sense of the industry they’re entering – something traditional internships don’t always provide. I am confident that the participants will leave the program with an increased enthusiasm for the profession, and we’d certainly like to continue offering that kind of positive experience in the future.”
