2011 . In Review

2011 has been another great year for me.  I got to experience so many awesome things and had life changing events happen.  I have so much to be thankful.  I have a great family, an incredible fiancee, and so many great friends.  My blog frequency has slowed downed a little of late, but thanks for always checking in.

I wanted to do a little recap of my year.  In my typical blogging style, many pictures, not so many words:

JANUARY

Studio trip to San Antonio and Houston...

FEBRUARY

Sara visits Baton Rouge and NOLA...

MARCH

Mom comes to NOLA for a mission trip (and Mardi Gras)...

APRIL

Spring Break trip with LSU to...Los Angeles, Yosemite, San Francisco, Lake Tahoe, Death Valley NP, Mammoth, Grand Canyon NP, Sedona, and Phoenix...

MAY - JULY

Spent the summer studying abroad in Italy.  Spent eight weeks in Rome.  While in Italy, I got to travel to the Monti Simbruini National Park, the Cinque Terre, Venice, Florence, and Sorrento/Capri.  I spent the final four days of my trip in Madrid, Spain...

AUGUST

Family vacation to central Tennessee for a lot of golf and a little bit of hiking...

SEPTEMBER

Beginning of internship at HadenStanziale...

NOVEMBER

SARA AND I GOT ENGAGED!!!!!!

DECEMBER

Trip to Illinois to visit family for Christmas.  Sara got to come with and meet lots of family she had never met before...

2011 was a fantastic year.  Hope everyone has a great 2012...

Internship . The End

My internship with HadenStanziale came to an end on Friday.  It was a great learning and working experience.  I got to work on a variety of different projects that were in all different phases...everything from schematic design to construction documents.  It was good to be able to both see a bunch of different projects and to see all the the different interactions that landscape architects have with clients, architects, project managers, and stakeholders.  A great internship and experience.

Here are a few images of some of the projects/drawings that I worked on:

Accolades

I've been part of some cool awards in the last couple of weeks...


First off, LSU Robert Reich School of Landscape Architecture is again a top ranked program.  For the second year in a row, the undergraduate program is ranked #1 and the graduate program is ranked #2.  The graduate program has been ranked either the second or third best program in the country for the past five years.  Awesome.

http://www.lsu.edu/ur/ocur/lsunews/MediaCenter/News/2011/11/item38602.html

Second, HadenStanziale was recently named by the North Carolina Chapter of ASLA as the Firm of the Year in the state of North Carolina.  This is very big honor.  This is a recognition of contributions to the profession and great design work over an extended period of time.  The award came as a complete surprise to everyone and everyone in the office is very excited.  Will be a great selling point for the office to get new work.  Awesome.

1 Month On the Job

It has officially been one month since I started working for HadenStanziale...

Everything has been been great so far.  Everyone in the office is nice and very willing to help me out if I have any questions.  Even better, they always have something for me to do so I am always busy.  Nothing worse than being at work with nothing to do.  I have been able to work on a variety of different projects in a variety of ways so far.  I have been doing some of the typical intern tasks like editing drawings, delivering drawings sets, and copying/scanning but I have been able to do a lot more.  I have been able to create drawing sets, make various maps, edit design documents, and do site design and renderings on my own for two different projects.  I have been working mainly in AutoCAD, Photoshop, and a little bit of Sketchup.  I would post some of the work but dont have approval to do so.

Beyond helping with drawings, I am beginning to understand the in's and out's of the business side of the profession.  This is where a gigantic hole is in our education at LSU.  We get none of this.  Everything is kind of in fairytale land.  No money constraints, do whatever you want.  When it comes down to getting things done in the real world, there are laws, ordinances, and real money that has to be worked around for a design to actually work.  Also, its been pretty eye opening to see just how long it takes for things to get done.  All the different drawing submissions and approval processes through the city is mind numbingly slow.  I now understand why all public work takes so long to get finished.

Overall, month one has been great.  Looking forward to learning more.

"Love your work, work for what you love"