My First Term of studing in College
武汉大学城市设计学院建筑2班刘溪2009301530050 My First Term of Studying in College
2009301530050
武汉大学城市设计学院
建筑二班
刘溪
My First Term of Studying in College
After calculated my score of the entrance examination of college, I was in the face of making a hard decision of where to go. It is widely known that among all the colleges in China, Wuhan University has one of the most beautiful scenery with a long history. So I made up my mind to realize my dream of being an architecture designer in such an attractive place.
Then, I hit the road...
The first lesson I have to learn in college, in fact, was to live independently. After a tight hug, my mother went away in a taxi, living me alone in this brand new environment. I walked back to my dormitory then threw myself on the bed, the feeling of loneliness suddenly surrounded me. Did not know what to do, I began to worry about my future.
Soon, I ran into many difficulties. When I wanted to do some cleaning or washing, there wasn't any hot water at hand. When I wanted to take a bath, there was nowhere to go. When I came to the canteen, the kind of food I was fond of could no longer be found. What was more, I missed my past life so much that I lost in my memory all day and could not concentrate on studying...
During the struggle time, I always said to myself:" Come on,
Venessa, you can over come all of these difficulties!" I learned to carry boiled water on the way back to my room, adjusted myself to the cool-water bath, became to enjoy the delicious local food, and my friends and parents always gave me calls or send messages to encourage me...After a month's adjustment, I found myself fall in love with the life here. What a lovely place!
Students who majored in architecture are regarded as the busiest ones in the university. So my studying life here is fully filled with different hard but interesting subjects. Among them, what I first like to talk about is, English.
The first exam I took in the university was an English one by whose score we were divided into two kinds of classes. A high level one and the other common ones. Unfortunately, my score was not high enough to enter the high level class, which really made me down for a long time.
When the course began, I found I was so lucky to be taught by a knowledgeable, experienced and humorous teacher. Mr. Sun not only taught us English but also gave us a topic to discuss in the class. After our heated discussion, he always made a conclusion. Every time his words would let me know more about society life. He was able to make the class attractive, so all my roommates admitted that they adore his way of teaching. He required us to write summaries both
before and after reading a passage to improve our writing skill and show us the progress we made, every single mistake in our articles can be correct by him patiently. He was also a gentleman who has eyes that can discover the beauty of life, which can give us student majored in architecture a lot of inspiration. His intelligence words did influence my thoughts and feeling deeply.
Mr. Sun told us the aim to learn English was not to pass an exam or to get a diploma, but to get information and express our ideas. In a word, English is a tool for communication. I can not agree more. Once he has put down these words in my composition:" Go ahead this way and you will be qualified for translation work!" How much energy and encourage I got from these words! I know I still have long way to go, so I will keep on moving on my way of English learning bravely!
There are many professional subjects in our course. Among them, architectural design is the most challenging one. Every three weeks we would receive a task and devote all ourselves to complete it. I can still remember clearly the day when my partner Jenny and I received the task immediately after the first class. At that time, we had not any knowledge about architecture at all, so the requirement of making a model and finish drawing an A2 sized paper of the out-looking of a building from different directions is far more beyond our ability. We
chose the cottage of Saltzman, which was really a charming building with white wall and beautiful surroundings designed by Richard Meier.
As the work progressed, more and more problems emerged: how to choose the proper material for different furniture, how to make the arcade, how to decide the position of the doors and the windows and how to set the size of the whole building... We headed towards the library for the answers to the question in the daytime and worked together late until midnight. When the model finally completed in a night, we were so happy that we took lots of pictures of it regardless of the faint light. Hardly had we rest for a single minute when we had to deal with the picture drawing. Since all the pictures we gathered were drawn by the foreign standard, we had to pick up the signs in the professional dictionaries to translate them in Chinese time after time... When I finished my work and showed it happily to our teacher, to my disappointment, the reply I got was there were a lot of things expected to be improved. Even now, I still admire myself at the determination to draw it a second time and tore off the former picture immediately at once in case I would regret. Finally the day came when the whole class finished our work and all the models together with its pictures are displayed around the hall of our teaching building. It was a chance for us to watch and learn from each other. I
regarded that as the very moment when our devotion paid off. I found the task was really worth devoting. I did master how to build a model with KT board, the using of different kinds of material, and the skill of drawing a professional picture by our country's standard. What's more, Jenny and I became close friends after that, and the time we spent together will be my valuable memory forever!
My first independent design was a telephone box. To complete this task, I became to take the size of people into consideration. In my opinion, what size of a building will make the users more comfortable is of vital importance, then comes to the out-looking, style or something like that. Aimed to design a hommization telephone box, I measured many telephone boxes in the city and got the information I want. My design was two abstract butterflies, as the sun moving in the sky; it will cast different shadows over the ground, just as two butterflies are playing in the blossom. I like butterfulies, my inspiration was just from it.
Since the second task was set for us to learn how to design a point-like building, our third task, to design a bus station, was for us to create a building in the shape of a line. This time, I get the inspiration from the folded-plate construction and gave the bus station a rainbow shaped roof which made it look more interesting and creative.
The last task this term was the design of a small sized art gallery. It required us not only to set the inner wall in the proper position but also make the space hierarchically. It did cost me a lot of time to carry out the project and finish making the maquette. The task is still under working now, and I'm looking forward to completing it successfully!
Building drawing is the most difficult subject I have ever encountered in college, and the teacher is the strictest one I have ever met in the college, too. Mr. Mi is a professor who enjoys high prestige and commands widely respect. He did not allow us to eat anything in the class while other teachers may take it for granted. Sometimes I would be embarrassed to be examined my homework by him, since every time he could find some mistakes in my exercise book. In fact, he is a humors man who can tell jokes to keep us from sleeping. He taught us much knowledge that is not contained in the course but necessary for us. It did make me admire him a lot!!
When doing the homework of this subject, I always can't make the space structure clear so I had difficulties in solving the problems correctly. Thanks to my warm-hearted roommates, they gave me a lot of assistant. Every time I turned to them for help, they would teach me patiently again and again until I totally understand. How lucky I am to have them with me! This course opens only for this term, that is
to say, we cannot enjoy Mr. Mi's class any more. All I can do now is to review the knowledge hard in order to get a high score in respond to his devotion.
Drawing is a basic course in department of architecture. To tell the truth, at the beginning I didn't like this course at all because I had no foundation as the other gifted classmates, so I found it hard to coordinate my steps to others. Since got two A+s continuously, I remained receiving As in the following several drawings. Maybe, getting an A is acceptable for the other person, but for me, is far from being satisfied. I tired hard, both in and after class, from imitating others to drawing all by myself. I progressed, but still not well enough for an A+. One day our teacher noticed me and came up to me. She observed my work then gave a lot of helpful advice to me. After receiving countless As, I finally got an A+ in the latest drawing class and had my work shown to the whole class. How proud and happy I was at that moment. I am grateful to her for her unconditioned help.
Once in the Xinhua Book Store, I was searching for a book from shelf to shelf when suddenly a book came into my eyes whose writer was my teacher of the introduction of architecture. She is a tall, good-looking lady who has a lot of experience. During the first several classes, I found the classes were useless because I could
learn nothing only by watching films and pictures. Then I began to realize that, what she told us was only a brief introduction that can be regarded as something like a catalogue, more work was need to be done after class. Then I formatted the good habit of diving in the library and enjoy reading books on the history of architecture. Among all the subjects, homework of this course is the most I like and it is the only course that we don't need to prepare for an exam. We were asked to use 9 squares to form a picture in one of the tasks; I organized them as following petals, which I think was fantastic!
As a student of architecture, I am always taken envious by my friends. In fact, they only see my artistic life, but missing most of my hardship and devotion behind it. After a term's learning in the Urban Design School of Wuhan University, I did gain a lot and know more both in architecture and in life. To be an architect is a dream began with my childhood, I will dedicate my whole life to it and hold on to the belief that I will become a successful designer one day in the future!
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