Jean is in her fourth year of the Bachelor of Design Studies - Architectural Technology program. She is from Brockton, MA and has spent the majority of her life traveling to other areas of the country and the world.
She came to the BAC in Fall 2008 out of high school for a Bachelor of Architecture degree. She went through all her A and B level studios and passed Segment I portfolio in Spring 2010, but later switched her concentration to better accommodate her responsibilities outside her career. She plans to earn a Master of Architecture degree and possibly begin a career as an educator in the future. She feels her current degree gives her an amazing opportunity to learn and do what she loves - design.
Jean is part of NOMAS (National Organization of Minority Architecture Students), SASLA (Society of Landscape Architects Student Chapter), Studio Q, and AIAS (American Institute of Architecture Students). She is currently the 2011-12 Chapter Secretary of the BAC AIAS. She is striving to revitalize our local chapter and maintain an amazing relationship with the national organization.
She has always been intrigued by art, graphics, construction, and networking. In her junior to senior year of high school, she spent most of her time either in the gym, playing on a sports team, participating in student government or work in the fine arts building. She found herself taking engineering and drawing workshops, graphic design classes, and best of all, architecture classes. She drew, made models, thought conceptually, read books, referenced architects and enjoyed being able to converse with instructors who had worked in architectural firms.
Jean’s work has a lot to do with her experiences. She is articulate in creating ways for people to live and interact with the spaces they encounter. The designs she develop are fueled from critics’ responses in studio, her knowledge in the field and simply experiences from working on home construction projects. She is amazed by how things such as the foundation of a house come together and work effectively as a whole.
Furthermore, she was one of the first few students to participate in a Gateway Project, previously called ‘Special Projects’. She competed in the in-school NOMAS competition last summer and had a great experience collaborating with her team. She was also a student mentor for the Browne Fund Research and a studio assistant for Summer Academy 2009. She enjoys teaching, communicating and creating a relationship with students where she can share knowledge about the field of architecture.
Jean is proud of passing portfolio review and staying with an extremely tough major. She currently works for Economy Hardware and the Office for Student Development at the BAC. She quotes, from Tod Williams & Billie Tsien Architects, "Progress is a stutter step, not a forward march - three steps forward, two to the side, and one step back. It is a choreography that somehow pulls itself together."
