Just before graduating from high school, I made a life-changing decision. I decided to pursue one-quarter of my ambitions in my life. I let the soccer ball deflate, the jazz in my saxophone stopped and I stopped crunching numbers in calculus. I scrambled to rejoin the Art Club, and I accepted a scholarship to Ball State University so that I could study architecture. I wasn’t totally sure what all was going to be involved, but I was hoping it was a mix of the other three-quarters of my life ambitions because I had just picked the path that I knew least about.

I try to remember how I felt in those first few weeks and months when I chose to start becoming an architect, so that it reminds me to keep learning and exploring new opportunities in life. I’ve been very fortunate to learn about the wide range of architecture in the world.