You will find short stories on this site. Most are autobiographical. Some are fiction.

CAREER CHOICE

It is commonly held that college is a good place to choose your profession. By careful consideration of one’s proclivities, he/she could come to a well-considered decision about what carrier to follow. This choice can then be tested by taking classes in your chosen discipline. However choosing one’s life work doesn’t always proceed in such a deliberative manner.

This story starts in high school when my dad signed me up to take a carrier interest inventory at the counseling center of the University of Oregon. There, I was given a long series of questions about all sorts of things. My career interests were determined by correlating my responses to those of various professionals. The results came back that my greatest affinity was for medicine. This was not surprising as my dad was an MD. The close second affinity was Architecture. This was wholly out of the blue. I barely knew what architects did.

When I enrolled in college, my major was pre-med. During my second year in college, my classes included psychology and organic chemistry. I enjoyed psychology but did poorly in organic, earning a B, a C, and a D in the three successive terms. That D meant death to any hope of gaining admission into a medical school. So I switched my major to psychology, thinking I would become a school counselor. Over the summer between my sophomore and junior years, another psych major and I traveled to Salem to visit the state mental hospital. That experience was so depressing that I began to question my choice of psychology as a career.

Talking to a friend, at the start of my junior year, I mentioned that I had a three credit hour gap in my schedule. This friend, an architecture student, suggested that I take basic design. He said that it is related to psychology because it is about thinking, but differently.

His suggestion sounded good, and I signed up for basic design. As it turns out, there were two sections of basic design. They were taught in adjoining studios, 226A and 226B. I reported to class on the first day at studio 226A. The professor, Lee Hodgden, was a short muscular man with a bushy beard. His hair was uncombed and his dark shirt and levis looked like they had been left in a pile the night before. He was a little scary when he first walking into his studio, but he quickly revealed his engaging and gregarious personality. He had an energetic way of presenting design concepts which made me feel excited to jump into his assignments which were, like him, engaging and challenging. I can’t remember any specifics, but he would have assigned tasks such as to use a pen with India ink and watercolor washes on watercolor paper to present an image of a structure which he had assembled of on a table in the center of the studio. His structure was made of carefully stacked modular stone blocks of differing shapes and sizes. It had open spaces between blocks through which the eye could wander. Another assignment would be to build a cube of construction paper, using scissors and glue which was a 6 inch square on each face, and which was cut away revealing an sequence of interior spaces. Spaces intended to draw the attention of the observer, into the interior spaces. It was a two-day assignment. On the first day, we were to use drawing to explore the design possibilities and finalize our concept. We were to construct our design during the second two hour studio session. His studio was a refreshing, thought provoking experience every day. It was decidedly different from any other college class, that I had taken, and I was enjoying it greatly.

At the end of the first week of class in his studio, Hodgden came to me and said “Your name is not showing up on the roster of enrolled students. Perhaps you are registered in the other section of basic design.” I walked down the hall to explained my situation to the teacher of the other basic design section. He was dressed in conventional manner: dark slacks, a blue blazer over a white shirt and blue tie. He had no time to talk to me, and immediately declined to admit me because I had missed the first week. Upon reflection, had he been my instructor, I would probably not have felt the strong urge continue which drove me to go directly to the architecture school office to plea for continuation in the class. The secretary told me that since both of the basic design studios were full, and I was not an architecture major, the professors were not required to admit me. My only option was to wait for the following year and see if there was space for me then.

Unbeknownst to me, Professor Hodgden had come into the hall, adjoining the office, to collect his mail. As he looked though his mail, he overheard my conversation with the school secretary. Dejected, I turned to leave, and was startled find Lee Hodgden standing behind me. He asked “Tod, are you willing to change your major to architecture? If so, you may continue in my studio.”

I had never considered an architecture major. Basic design was not about architecture. It was not about buildings at all. It was a course in abstract thinking, about the composition of structures and spaces. We were learning to make aesthetically pleasing drawings and objects. I knew nothing about Architecture, but if it was anything like the studio experience with Hodgden, I wanted to continue. In that moment I recalled the aptitude test that I had taken four years earlier. I paused to consider this proposition for no more than three seconds, and answered “YES”. While it didn’t enter into my quick decision, later it occurred to me that the professor must think I am talented or he would not have gone out of his way to offer me a place in his crowded studio. This was not the case. He later told me that he knew my major was psychology. He said “I did it so that at dinner that evening, I could tell my wife, who is a professor in the Psychology Department, ‘I stole one of your students today’.”

My choice of my professional carrier was set in that moment. I proceeded to complete the five year curriculum to earn a bachelor’s degree in Architecture from Oregon, and later, a masters degree in Architecture at the University of Pennsylvania. I have succeeded in becoming licensed and have made my living as an Architect for the past 50 years. So for me, college was a good way to choose my carrier, though not in the deliberative manner proscribed.