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

CAREER CHOICE

It is said that college is a good place to choose your life’s work. We are told that by careful consideration of our interests and skills, we could arrive at a well-considered decision about what career to follow. This choice can then be tested through classes in the chosen discipline. However, choosing one’s life work doesn’t always proceed in such a deliberative manner.

The story of my career choice starts in high school when my dad signed me up to take a career interest inventory at the counseling center of the University of Oregon. There, I was given a long series of multiple-choice questions on a wide variety of subjects. 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 result was wholly out of the blue. I barely understood what architects do for a living.

I enrolled in college as a pre-med major. During my second year in college, my classes included psychology and organic chemistry. I enjoyed psychology. But organic chemistry was taught as memorizing sequences of reactions rather than as the mechanisms of organic chemisty. I did poorly with memorizing and earned 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, I traveled to Salem to visit the state mental hospital with another psychology student. This was the same institution depicted in the movie, “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”. That experience was so depressing that I began to question my choice of psychology as a career.

While talking to a friend at the start of my junior year, I mentioned that I needed to fill a three-credit-hour gap in my schedule. My friend was an architecture student. He suggested that I take Basic Design. He said that it is related to psychology because it is about thinking.

His suggestion sounded good, so 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 in studio 226A. The professor was Lee Hodgden. He was a short, muscular man with a bushy beard and a quick, energetic way of presenting design concepts. The class was challenging and engaging. I was enjoying it.

At the end of the first week, 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 explain my situation to Prof. Hayden, the teacher of the other section. He refused to admit me because I had missed the first week. I went directly to the architecture school office to argue my case for admission. 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 in a first-term Basic Design studio.

Unbeknownst to me, Professor Hodgden had come into the office to collect his mail. As he looked through his mail, he overheard my conversation with the school secretary. Dejected I turned to leave and was startled to 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 about abstract thinking, composition, and the making of aesthetically pleasing drawings and objects. I knew nothing about Architecture. At that moment, I recalled the aptitude test that I had taken four years earlier. I paused to consider this proposition for no more than two seconds and answered “YES”. While it didn’t enter into my quick decision, afterward 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. He later told me that he knew my major was psychology and that his wife taught in the Psychology Department. He said he made the offer so that he could, over dinner, tell his wife, “I stole one of your students today.”

Looking back, although my choice of professional career was set in a moment. It was a good choice. From that moment, I proceeded to complete the five-year curriculum to earn a bachelor’s degree in Architecture from Oregon, and later, a master’s degree in Architecture from the University of Pennsylvania. I became licensed in Oregon and Washington. I have enjoyed a successful 50-year career as an Architect. So for me, college was a good way to choose my career, though not in the way one would expect.