 Hi everyone. It's great to have you join us. I know we're heading into the holidays at least in the U.S. and I'm Amal Andraouf and I'm joined by Andres Khaki who is a professor here at the school and also direct the Advanced Architecture Design Program as well as Marc Saint-Pierre who is an EMARC in the third year EMARC program. We have Tola Oniyangi who has joined us and is a dual degree EMARC MSUP that's Urban Planning, Dylan Danton MSAAD and Anam Ahmed also an AAD student. Thank you all for your questions. We've kind of combined them to try to answer as many of them as possible and give you a sort of overview of the school. We're excited to have you apply and think about what we do here at GSAP. So the first question and more broadly I think as a kind of concern is what distinguishes GSAP from other schools? How is our approach to teaching architecture, planning, preservation different? And there's a number of things that I like to say about the school in that I think we are very much engaged in the kind of sense of continuity of the disciplines of the built environment but also change. I think the school has historically really led the transformation of disciplines that has led the thinking about how architecture and planning can engage more broadly with the world. And the sense of engagement, what I call now scales of engagement is very strong. It's possible that it's a result of GSAP and Columbia being so urban, being in New York, a global city. We can't pretend like we're in an isolated sort of school. We're kind of deep into the structure of the city. We're kind of witnessing changes every day and so I think that feedback loop is very, very strong here at the school. And we are about ideas. I like to say we're an urban condenser of ideas. We really think about how ideas can transform again what we do as architects, how we think, how we approach questions of architecture and of the design. And I think we do that, I like to think and here I'll invite everybody to join. There's a sense of openness, of kind of intellectual generosity. People come here from all over the world with very diverse backgrounds and we as teachers are as much learning from students as students are learning from us. It's a real kind of conversation. Nobody knows what architecture is going to do or be in the future. We can't tell you this is what architecture is, but we can give you the tools to think through what it can be for the future and how to articulate a position for yourself, how to figure out how to engage as architects with the world. And I think this is very much something that we share across the programs and in particular across the MRC and the AAD program. And so when you ask what is the school's ideology, I don't like to say that we don't have an ideology. We have really a sort of a mission to open up things, to ask questions, to enable students and faculty to ask questions and to take positions vis-à-vis practice and how to shape practice for the future. And I think there's a kind of sense of optimism, I hope. I know that today the world really needs us to think differently about cities, about the environment and I think as such architects are really at the crucial moment where they can define new directions for the planet and I very much kind of like to support that at the school and also to support a sense of entrepreneurship, a sense of critical engagement. There was one great question about why isn't there a thesis? Well, because every semester we ask you to have a thesis. And at the end of three years or three semesters in the case of the AAD program you make a portfolio, you put all your ideas together and you present a position through representation, through writing, et cetera, vis-à-vis the field. And so it's really that sense of encouragement that I think we're different at. Andres, what do you think? No, I totally agree. I have the feeling that architecture is super important now. Like all the things that we're reading in the first page of newspapers, all the things that we care about are very architectural. So I think that the way you see G-SAP now is a place, a cold run, where all these capacities of architecture are being explored and reinvented. And it doesn't mean that everyone's doing the same. On the contrary, it's basically each one is looking at a different direction, but in all these directions architecture is playing a key role and we're talking of issues of climate change, borders, the way we turn technology accountable. The way we can deal with identities, the new forms of public space or spaces of convening, all these kind of urgent issues are issues that can only be addressed through architecture. And we have a huge amount of people and institutions and laboratories that basically are mobilized to G-SAP and expanding through the city of New York that are making it possible for people that come here to really find an amazing place where they can explore whatever they are moved to. And I think that's very unique. I really enjoyed that and that's the reason I think that we all come here basically because there's an energy that comes out of this concentration of basically the feeling that architecture is relevant and that it's relevant as a practice that mobilized design and that situates design in the places where things are happening. I would definitely agree with several of both your points, but I think in my two semesters here in the AAD program there are several things that have been wildly different between the two semesters, but the similarities are that both are multidisciplinary in that over the summer we're using the sciences and philosophy to look into the future of climate change and then in this semester I've been working with Professor Mabel O. Wilson and using history and all of these different areas of study to sort of, and both are speculating 100 years in the future. Both studios were situated far from our present time so I think the multidisciplinary way to look forward has been vastly different from the way that I've been taught to learn before coming to Columbia. I think to kind of tack on, I came to architecture from a French background, a state of French undergrad, so showing up was a total blank slate. I had no clue where these three years were going to go and it's been a really wild, meandering path through a multitude of studios and scales and how it came together is through these three last hardcore research studios where to add your thing about thesis, each studio, when you jump into it, it's like the first three to six or seven weeks of building argument and building thesis and then the next part of that is executing on it. So each studio has a super intense rigor in terms of how you approach research and then taking on your personal stake and then finding stakeholders and output and making a project unique unto itself and having that architectural boundary blur past its envelope and kind of into the greater world that we operate in. So thinking about it, you're thinking 50 years in the future. Right now we're working on an island in southern Tunisia of Gerba and it's like taking on current geopolitical economic actors, kind of like tourism sitting in this place as well as climate change and border issues going on in Libya. So it's like all of these things are kind of overlapping in this current state and that's like right next to we share a studio space. So it's like all of these things are happening in this like really condensed area. Yeah, I think just to add to that, I think one thing that I'm all mentioned was about the openness of GSAP and I come from a hardcore architecture background like B-Arc and an M-Arc but Columbia has been so different for me especially and I really think this sense of community that exists within the school and the collaborative nature is excellent because you could be taking an elective, someone could come for a review and they would still remember your project and still be giving you input and I think that's so important because of the questions we're asking and the kind of projects we're developing here and also the notion of studio, the research is really, really advanced but also how it's situated in reality which I find very important because it kind of places our responsibility as architects in the world and I think for me that's why AAD has been so great so far because being like a young architect it's kind of helping me shape the kind of architect I also want to be so it's been great. The only thing I'm going to add is I think the diversity of different types of professors and their opinions as also seen in the different types of electives that we can take is really important and has been really influential in helping me and I think a lot of other people figure out where it is in architecture in the future that they want to situate themselves so there's never, you're never going to get two professors that are teaching the exact same thing in the exact same way you're always going to have choices and options. But it's like even kind of like through all those different choices and options like I felt like over the last type of many studios I guess we're up to five now they might have each been like kind of radically different from the one before it but they've all been complementary kind of leading up to this larger piece and so yeah it's like you've kind of explored different ideas and kind of different architectural approaches and even like different representational approaches in some studios like really going in different directions but they've never felt disjointed and it's always been like it's been pushing towards this like greater architectural body of knowledge and it's like it's just been like really amazing coming with nothing and like after three years like I feel. Well it's great to hear you say that. I would say next time I just should not show up and then let... But I'm very encouraged it's always great because I feel like it's a moment also where we get feedback you know even though of course we get feedback all the time but it's true if you think about the structure and you know if I think about the MRC as a kind of three year structure and the AAD as a three semester structure there's quite you know in the MRC program really the at least in the kind of studio there's really I would say the first three semesters we say are architecture and the city and they sort of scale up. They scale from Ana Pugina is looking at you know Broadway and understanding you know that very well known New York street in the kind of new way and although it's kind of a much smaller scale of intervention it really already looks at socio-political impacts and the history and typology and you know brings all these things to and traces kind of Broadway and then in the second semester you know it's your first building it's usually an institutional building and you start to integrate you know form and program and structure and then you know housing in the third semester really is architecture and the city and you know the school has a very long legacy in looking at housing we just launched a housing lab last year it you know housing is such an urgent question and today at the school we're really bringing design intelligence but also connecting with planning and policy and to look at this kind of in aggregation this question of housing as both a design and a formal problem but also a policy question and environmental sort of question as well and then in the last three semesters we kind of really emphasize architecture and environment obviously things are not so structured but here you're thinking about scales of environment you're looking at kind of systems in the fourth semester you're looking at rural conditions and then in the last two semesters there is kind of the notion of the argument really builds up and there's a lot of kind of travel in the last two semesters not just to travel but to look at global conditions and think about them in relation to practice today and you know that's the kind of studio sequence every sequence builds in a similar way history theory is very engaged in global issues as well and sort of what we call de-centering the kind of European hegemony on architectural history and diversifying that quite a bit and visualization and technology we almost think about them as together there's a very strong sense of representation here at the school drawing is what we do critically as architects but at the same time that skill and that form of knowledge is intersecting now with technology and so these two things are really and building science and etc so what I like to hear is that the program is extremely structured but at the same time there's a lot of freedom within it to define a kind of position and AAD builds also as you mentioned Dylan from the kind of extremely critical and I'm extremely creative very much architectural but at the same time very much engaged in the kind of urgent questions of our time I think Yeah, I think the AAD basically is three semesters that feel like three years actually it's very fast, very intense the summer is a moment that everyone arrives we have people from 25 different countries coming here and basically each one comes with a very different trajectory what I really like about the summer and maybe you can tell me what was your experience is that it's super intense like basically we bring all these people every all these people come and there's an effort to make sure that every single kind of layer of reality that is becoming critical to architecture where architecture is gaining a huge voice is explored and then also we have the kind of we make a great effort to mobilize all the kind of resources of the school so everyone gets to know what are the experiences in terms of representation technology visualization that have been developing the school and what is the way that we can reconstruct our together, our relationship with the field and we explore more than 200 projects in detail in this course that we call Transclarities and then the second and the third semester the AAD students are ready to mix with the rest of the school and that's a very intense moment in which basically you have to choose between 21 studios and it's a moment that basically you feel the muscle of the school that has this long trajectory of innovation and intervention and criticality I wanted to pick up on Dylan what you mentioned but also Tola you're a dual and dual student I think the notion of interdisciplinarity and transdisciplinarity is very strong here at the school we have dual studios even in the American AAD programs we have dual studios between architecture and planning between architecture and preservation between real estate and architecture we have cross-disciplinary seminars Friday morning which kind of bring all the students across the programs together we have summer workshops that's been going on for five years they are kind of outside of the curricula and so we're able to provide three weeks and where students come together and we this past semester have joined forces with the Buell Center which is also part of the school and led by Reinhold Martin to kind of bring a number of courses together around the question of public works for a green new deal so that was another way to kind of be more cross-disciplinary so I wanted to hear more about your experience kind of interacting or feeling like you were getting architecture but also architecture in relation to other fields so I guess to kind of tack on to both there's this moment when you first kind of come into GSAP and everyone kind of arrives and there's this big first few months of this kind of cross-learning because everyone is coming from different backgrounds or from different kind of background and teaching each other new skills and you have this moment again and it's like this incredible moment of energy in your third year when all the AADs and all the M-Marks kind of come together in these big studios and there's this massive push where everyone is like both teaching each other things and then everyone's like learning new skills new methodologies and new ways to like look at like the world around us that's like a really exciting moment in your GSAP time when this big like cross and then I guess like summer studios I got to go on one this summer workshop this summer I was in Lebanon I was amazing it was three weeks in Beirut a big exhibition at a gallery there and there's tons of research, super fun incredibly intense, hot but like wouldn't change it for anything but you did a dual degree yeah so from a dual degree perspective I think GSAP does a really good job at giving you the opportunity to integrate different interests and there's a wide range of classes from both the architecture side from the other side but also the studios that Mel was talking about I've taken two of those two of the joint urban planning and architecture course studios and I think like it's a real strength to be able to integrate both those things and have students from both those programs, professors from both those programs and still come out with projects that are very intentional and very much rely on expertise from both those sides together did you do the Puerto Rico one? yeah I did the Puerto Rico studio which it was in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria so we went to Puerto Rico and we all had different projects that reacted to the context and to obviously the ecological issues as well in various different ways but there's also so many other electives as well I would say especially some of the ones that are for the whole school like data visualization courses, generative design there are a whole bunch of other different types of classes that people from people from many different programs in GSAP take all those classes interact with each other and all come out with different skills and expertise from that totally and I think this moment that you're talking about of everyone sort of coming together it's like a really great moment when I got here and I think as a native New Yorker I'm by far in the minority with the AAD program from all around the world for sure and then also when you come together with the MR students for example my roommate is an MR who's been working for years as a product designer and he's really talented in something that I know very little about and he's a first year and he can teach me so much but so that part's I think really great and I think that multidisciplinary comes again through the electives that we take so for example in one class I'm I'm learning how to I'm learning JavaScript and coding an app that'll help intervene in space and the way we use our phones and then another class I'm working in the shop by hand making light fixtures by pouring concrete and so the range is like on both ends of the spectrum and both incredibly enjoyable I find and I'm learning a lot at the same time yeah I mean I think just thinking about this summer it was another timeline and it was very the two most intense months of my life I can safely say but it was it was a really good way to catch up I think because once we came to fall and we merged with the MRX we knew that the pace of the school was kind of a different pace altogether and we had to like keep up but it's been great I think also like building up on what Dylan is saying but the interdisciplinary thing that I mean the courses are amazing that are offered and even now I was struggling with my registration but I think like for instance like I'm taking a making class and that's also really interesting because you know of course it's a part of architecture but it's also you're not just in the digital world but you're also in the real world and you're working with your hands because I think you know what I guess what I'm saying is that it really allows you to shape and test the things that you want to test and another thing about the interdisciplinary disciplinary thing was then in the summer we had the transularity scores and also the argument scores and while the program is very structured it's still so cohesive I mean it's open but structured but so cohesive that I feel like everything informs the other and we had like artists, designers come in for the argument series and it was amazing how their work can actually help you inform something you might be doing in studio or even like your theory classes so it's quite well integrated which is awesome Two things that I'm sort of hearing you say that I was I want to kind of pick up on the first is the fact that the although the curriculums are structured there's a sense of openness and the fact that we adapt and we are trying to respond to what is happening out in the world and that there's a kind of feedback loop I think between the students and the faculty between what's happening in the world and the curriculum but it's where it's live you're getting foundations but it's also live do you get that sense that you're kind of thinking through the issues through your work yeah and the courses they change so rapidly it's like every semester almost like the course list gets like updated and like new teachers come on so the course list and like the registration in general kind of adapts to both its context as well so it's like we're constantly being fed like new information and new courses that might that just like help kind of add to your educational experience so there's no static or like stale thing that oh I took that three years ago or took that last year it's always changing and always adapting so it makes like you said registration super tough also for the faculty I have to tell you it's very competitive constantly I have two students this semester not me but actually it did happen to me the first time I taught because it's very competitive it's super competitive and so you want all these courses and they're constantly changing so you're like reading these handbooks like you don't even know what to take it's a problem to have but it's a problem yeah I'm also going to add on that something this semester was the Green New Deal framework for I'm not sure if it's for the whole school or if it's just for M.R.C. 3 and A.D. but and U.D. I think U.D. A.D. and planning also and we're going to build on that so stay tuned yeah I think that's just really interesting and powerful kind of the fact that things are happening in the real world in the outside world and GSAP is responding to that so things like that when you're dealing with the curriculum and also there are the Buell Center there are many other facets of the school that really responds to what's happening absolutely I mean my studio this semester is based off of history and sociology but all the time we're bringing in the New York Times front page on a regular basis so I think that no matter what it's always what happens on a day-to-day basis is changing the way that the professors are thinking that students are trying to think and I think that's absolutely part of what makes everyone so excited is that we feel like we're a part of something that's larger than just what's happening in academia but we're working on things that are going to be impacting the real world now and when we graduate and move forward yeah I mean I'm in Andres' studio actually and we're doing we're also part of the Green New Deal like the five studios and I think in that sense it's also been really great because the idea of working between disciplines like we've been talking to experts who are experts on migration because we're focusing more on what's happening with the climate how it's affecting people globally and how architecture also plays such a vital role in something like that so we realize is you can't think about it in a box at all and you really have to kind of engage people who are experts let them help you and sort of make like bolster your project really so yes And so the second facet of this that I wanted to bring up was studio culture and collaboration and just because you know I want to just get a sense of you know I mean it doesn't you don't sound intimidated by the opportunities and you know I wanted to kind of hear a little bit about how it's going in studio and I'll go I think it's been so we do a lot of collaborative work and the first semester we had teamwork and now again we do and it's really amazing because you learn so much from people coming from different cultures like I mean I'm from a different part of the world but you also kind of find like your realities align while you're picking a similar studio so you're kind of on the same like ideological I think framework but also working with the MRX has been really great we only have one MRX in our studio because you know Andres is popular in A&D Andres is a star but that said I think even just from him and also because of the way we are located and literally in the studio we really help each other out a lot like just navigating the systems and also like the projects and even the courses so it's very intense but I think the idea of collaboration is challenging but it's also the reality so and it's also I think it really secures the work Yeah I mean I think if you're coming to GSAP you're gonna have to be prepared to spend a lot of time in the studio no matter what but that part is what's fun and exciting and I think the fact that everyone's looking to collaborate with each other and share ideas it doesn't come from a place of like oh I have to stay here to do work to impress the professor it's not like a coming from a place of fear it's coming from a place of all these amazing really smart people around you and you want to keep working with them you want to keep showing your ideas and I think I've totally been inspired by my peers and my professors to just like really want to spend my evenings in the studio and continue working to get better I just want to jump in please I just think the energy in studio is so contagious and which is what Dylan I think saying that you just you actually aren't forced to stay there you kind of enjoy staying there which is also really nice Yeah So I'm going to agree with everything they just said we actually will me and Max and the MRX we have three semesters where we have some working groups for housing studio and for two tech classes and I think all of that collaboration was so helpful especially for someone like me who came straight from undergrad and has never like apart from an internship worked in the real world where you have to work with people those are really fun but also I will say that for studio it's always it's not a culture of like everyone's competitive and if you ask someone like oh hey how do you like do this one cool rendering thing they'll be like no there's no one's there to help each other and it's always like everyone's pushing each other to do better Yeah I think it's like a very healthy competition like everyone is obviously striving to do their best work but never at the cost of someone else's and never at the cost of like helping someone else so I know personally I owe so much of my architectural education to like we were in a group together and you taught me GIS I would have never learned and so it's like I owe so many of these skills to like in this group and people bring certain skills bring other skills and like you can't there's no there's no option you have to learn it and so like you have to lean on your friends and your friends are like the people sitting next to you so you end up like creating this like really intense kind of like melting pot of education in these studios and they do get hot and so it just it becomes like a very intense but like very educational and like an amazing place of exchange because everyone is like in it together and there's like a very strong sense of like togetherness in the studios which I think is like why you choose to stay because when I when I try to work at home I get nothing done because like there's like there's a critical mass to it and so it's like it's a very special place it's also important in that you know often we get the question of you know what to do if you don't have an architecture background and if you have one etc and we've always found that literally after the first year you can't make the difference between who came in with an architecture background and who didn't and that's part of that exchange and that learning from one another and we really I mean I can tell you that for admissions we I mean I read all the applications, Andres reads the applications for AAD and you know we're looking for anyone who has an interesting background or you know what you write or you present yourself it doesn't matter you know of course if you have a great portfolio that's great but it's really who you are and how you can contribute with what you've learned to architecture and I mean it's true you can't tell the difference after you know the first and second semester did you have that experience? I mean the first year is like I mean just gonna be honest like it's tough because you show up and like there is an expectation that you know a lot of programs but you learn them like really really fast and that's a lot of it it's like talking to your neighbor who's taking next to you and saying like how do I do this thing in X and that person like almost always will stop and show you and so I'd say like within two or three months you're like program fluency and then it's just like about learning like representational skills and like simple like architectural like like I don't want to say standards but like conventions and after the first year you kind of like you kind of fade into the mass but then one thing that does show for like anyone who's like applying with an architectural background is that your humanity's background whatever it may be is very valued and like you come with different readings you come able to usually public speak and do other things that a lot of your architectural colleagues might have a harder time doing so you bring a lot to the table and I found that I was like it was never a one-way exchange when I was helping people were helping me and so it was always like very valuable. Are any of you TAing for the course? Yeah, me too. But I'm not TAing for course and I'm not TAing for a studio course it's a different position I'm TAing for the center for spatial research so I do mostly research work and I also TA the data visualization course but just students ask me questions with JavaScript which is what the class taught in and I helped them with that so. I'm asking because I think we also as a school offer quite a lot of TA ships and for us it's not just a kind of financial aid form of financial aid but it's also again this notion that teaching, learning etc. is a kind of feedback loop and I always enjoy both the marks end up, a lot of them end up TAing but the ADs I always feel like never leave. It's like I graduate them in the spring and then they show up in the summer as TA for the next class. So apply now. Actually there's an open call now. There's an open call. I'll be applying so see you in 2020. It's just a note to say that this is also part of the culture of the school that many of the students tend to either come back or TA while they're here and that creates a kind of really nice community in terms of learning through teaching in a way or through assisting in teaching. I wanted to talk about New York. We talk about global and the fact that we're very diverse and you're a New Yorker and the fact that the school as much as we're very connected to the world, how is the city so important to the school and how is the school as a cultural institution? I'm thinking about events and the number of people who come through and the fact that we have faculty that is practicing out in the city and it's very easy to bring them on reviews and so that also is a kind of very strong community and wanted to hear your thoughts about that in terms of your experience of the city as being a kind of real participant in the school and vice versa. I can't imagine a different place to study architecture than New York. Just in the way that your access to faculty and later access to employment like I know I have some friends who went to other schools upstate and when they came time for summer internships or summer jobs they had a really hard time just by housing because they had to get a house in New York as well as pay their summer rents wherever they were and so just kind of having this as your home base is like A, a great thing and then B again like your access to museums exhibitions music other faculty is like bar none and then kind of like going back into the core sequence that we spoke about earlier the first kind of three semesters where you operate on New York and it becomes your architectural laboratory is amazing just because it's A, an incredible way if you're not from New York to kind of experience and learn the city and then B, it's like there's no place more maybe architecturally interesting to like to learn and so New York has been for me a fantastic and I was a little nervous to move here I'm from California but it's been great yes all that plus I think the fact that we're able to have so many interesting professors come in a lot of people who teach at GSAP also work which I think is really nice just to be able to have access to those people people come for mid reviews as well as the final reviews and just the facts of being able to go to different conferences both at GSAP and at other places lectures, happy hours for different types of groups just there's just so much you can do here yeah I can only echo your point in that this was one of the main reasons I chose GSAP overall was and it has not let me down in that my professors just socially happy hours and I'm meeting architects that are practicing at the highest level and establishing a face-to-face connection with them which I think is critical in moving forward but beyond that also what the educational opportunities of New York allow you to do are really awesome so whether it's going with my professor to close door meetings at MoMA or visiting MoMA PS1 or going to the Whitney Biennial these are just opportunities that I studied in a small city in New Orleans and I didn't have the same opportunities while I was an undergraduate to do what I'm doing this year so both meeting people and attending the really important institutional events in New York yeah I mean absolutely I agree with all of this I think I did my eye mark in New York also and again came back two years later to New York the city has a different energy and I think it gives you so much opportunity in terms of the people, the art, the resources and not just in terms of I've come to Columbia from Parsons to look at books so even the architectural resource in the city in terms of the knowledge there's a lot that it has to offer and I think it really encourages you to test your ideas also which is kind of great because a lot of things are also happening in New York you'll have some of the biggest people or even not the smallest people testing their work like the MoMA PS1 you mentioned I think some parts of the world and all over the country so it's kind of great that you get to see it all within one city and I think too to kind of add on you also have access to the international stage in a lot of ways I with my partner who is now in your studio Frank last semester were able to participate in the Seoul Biennale with one of our professors some other classmates were able to participate in the Venice Biennale just because a lot of the architects that are going to these different places in the world are located here so you have access to the international stage which then as a student is like an amazing place to be able to get access to I like to think that we're especially if I look at the kind of course sequence from Broadway to Harlem housing is so embedded and working with the community here in Harlem and then upstate New York in New York with Advanced Four and then kind of travel there's also the sense of the kind of very local and very global which carries from studio work to the history theory curriculum to how we think about data and cities and how that's shaping the world the built environment and so these kind of ties I think are really important and on a very pragmatic level we have a career service centre which also supports alumni when they graduate and I know you're not yet thinking about that but you know it's been increasing so I know when I'm looking to hire I check with Francesca and she sends me great students and so it's both an informal network of colleagues and friends and faculty you TA for you get to meet etc or you're engaged working with them on some of their research project we have a number of centres a centre for spatial research that you're working for but there's also the centre for resilient cities and landscapes which is very tied to the urban design programme but you can also apply to help there there's the housing lab now etc and so there's really kind of a tie between pedagogy, practice, research and the kind of conversation between all of these parts so we have just a little few minutes left I I would say maybe one question I turn it to you if there was one question you would have liked to ask before applying or when you came here what made you decide to come or have you so far your experience has been I hope positive maybe one last words of wisdom to are excited but I'm sure also anxious listeners and applicants encourage me well I'm I chose GSAP because of the fact that I actually really wanted to do a dual degree and I felt like I had so many different interests and so many directions that I was being pulled in and I wanted to go to a school that had the options for me to try and figure out for myself like is this what I'm interested in and be able to try all these different opportunities that being said I feel like one thing I wish that I had known applying for the dual degree and like just being here as a dual degree student was the fact that the school isn't going to do that work for you you're going to have to like push yourself to take all those electives and connect with those professors that are doing work in these different areas and just being very very proactive yeah just being very proactive and really having a goal of like I'm doing these degrees but this is what I want to get from it and this is how I'm going to get from point 8 to point B yeah yeah I mean I guess I don't know if I really have a question I would have asked but I only when I applied to graduate school I only applied to cities I would live in so it was kind of like New York was top of the list and when I got in it was like I didn't read the other letters it was like we're going and it has not let me down I know it may seem like a daunting program but as compared to other MRX there's a lot of students in our years but it feels like just right and the studio space may seem tight but again like it feels perfect and I wouldn't like trade it for any other program or any other city it's been splendid yeah I think if I could tell myself one thing back in again you know I think going in I was really nervous I was very frightened it's certainly a daunting program to enter into and I think that I would just tell myself to you know get as involved as you can possibly be and not just in studio but also you know get a job in the workshop or working for exhibitions or working for you know the center for spatial research because it's not that putting more on your plate is going to make it's going to make everything easier if you're all and to the experience and I think that's how you would get the most out of this yeah that's good advice I mean I think for me being that I've studied architectural art before I really wanted a program which could kind of help me test my ideas and do it with the people like some of the best minds and also I wanted to come back to New York so it was kind of a very ideal situation because I it just worked out really well that way Great well we're very happy to have you and thank you for your time and your candid answers this is not scripted I didn't bribe anyone and it's just always a pleasure to hear everyone share their feelings and thoughts and we really are here for our students, for our faculty for architecture we want it to matter in the best way and to think about its future together so Andres any last words of well we're very excited to have new people coming, new topics new concerns, new discussions and that's the energy that keeps everything alive exactly and if you have more specific questions you know to direct them to the admissions office and otherwise apply and I look forward to reading you on the other side of the holidays thank you so much for your time, thank you