Week in the life of a 22-year old Architecture Student living in San Diego, California
ArchiWeek: 22-year old Architecture Student living in San Diego, California
Written by Felix Diaz, Edited by Aliya @archistudentnotes
This week we have a week in the life submission from Felix Diaz, an Architecture Student living and studying in San Diego, California
Would you have tackled the week any differently?
Monday
Monday’s are definitely my day to relax. I always take advantage of the free day, get a haircut in the morning and if I don’t eat breakfast I’ll either make myself something or I’ll buy a breakfast burrito right across the street for only 8.99$.
After getting back home from my haircut, I’ll shower and do the washing (I always seem to do this on Mondays as I work Tuesday through Friday). While my clothes washes, and throughout the day I like listening to music, playing video games, watching the news, reading fiction books, and drawing/sketching.
Late at night between 10:30pm and 11:30pm is when I’ll typically be finished washing my clothes from the laundry room downstairs in my apartment complex, which I’m also glad we have and isn’t far at all. If I am tired that night, I’ll lay my clean clothes on my bean bag, if not, I’ll definitely fold my clothes by either listening to music or watching some YouTube.
Most nights I do tend to end it with a movie to watch before bed, which I always end up falling asleep to, or I’ll simply listen to my music playlists.
Tuesday
On Tuesday’s is when my week really starts, especially during the summer.
I’ve got a part/full time job at a retail store and I clock in at 8:30am, unless I’m called in earlier. I currently do not have a car, so I take advantage of the public transportation to get to work, 5$ for a round trip.
While working, I typically won’t buy any lunch since my grandmother usually makes dinner for me and other family, so I’ll eat snacks or chips to not get to full before getting back to work again. The amount of hours we are given varies depending on how big the truck of merchandise we receive is, if the truck is big with merchandise, we’ll get more hours, but if the truck is small that means less hours.
Most of the time we’ll work either five or six hours, you’ll get seven, maybe even eight if you’re lucky.
When I am off work around 3:15pm to 5pm, the ride back home takes around thirty minutes, sometimes fifteen if the bus makes no stops and once I get home I’ll either go eat dinner at my grandmas home, or get my self settled real quick and relaxed before I go eat.
After dinner I start to really relax, unless I feel like doing something productive before I do so.
Sometimes I’ll feel like drawing with my pencils or with just a plain black permanent marker. If for some reason I don’t know what to sketch or draw which I always don’t, I will take a break from it, I don’t like to force myself to draw or sketch especially when I really don’t know what to draw. I like to really get into sketching when I know what I’m aiming to sketch, but unless I want to be creative and just explore more, yes I’ll definitely just sketch.
Other than that, if I am not sketching, I’ll play video games if I do feel like doing so. One thing I do like about myself is that I’ll only play video games for an hour or two because I’ll then be tired or playing lol.
Note from Aliya @archistudentnotes: Felix and I do not share this quality, I will play particular games e.g Sims 4 (No shame) all day, no joke can go for 12 hours. Well done to Felix for the limits set!
At this time it’s night, I’ll either shower if I haven’t done so, get ready for bed, then end my night with music, a movie or watching something on YouTube.
Wednesday
Wednesday’s. This day is my payday so I try not to think about that so much.
Throughout the week it’s typically the same thing as a Tuesday, especially since I am on summer break at the moment.
School will be resuming in two weeks though so I am saving as much money as I can for any school or other expenses and bills I need to pay for in the future. Good thing I’m not a heavy spender unless there’s a cool toy or light I see at work that would look cool in my room lol.
Note from Aliya @archistudentnotes If you’re looking to save money on architecture books - check out this post
To save more money, like I said I’ll buy snacks for lunch during work especially from the vending machine we have in the break room, I always seem to get the cool ranch Doritos, and some cookies both for just 2.25$. Lunch is at 1pm so that’ll usually have me good until dinner. After work and getting back home, it’s typically the same thing going on, unless I’ve got to wash towels or help my dad.
Mid Week Plug
Enjoying this weeks ArchiWeek? Interested in sharing your own week?
Thursday
Thursday’s are my Friday Jr.
For this day, I want to get more into detail what my job is like, since it is somewhat hefty.
Note from Aliya @archistudentnotes: I thought about editing this down but to be honest as a part time worker during university I think it’s important to share the ins and outs of what someone does outside of the architecture as well in it. Also, there is always something that can be learnt from any and all work experience.
First things first, I clock in at 8:30am in the break room, I’ll head towards the back of the building which is called ‘receiving’, the area where we receive all merchandise and where it is processed, ready for it to be put out onto the sales floor.
How it works in receiving is we get this truck that comes with pallets. Each 3.5ft by 4.5ft pallet comes with randomly sized boxes filled with merchandise, stacked on top of each other about four to five boxes high.
Now, from Tuesday through Thursday this truck comes by with about twelve to sixteen pallets. In a day! And it’s my job to scan each individual box with a scanner for each and every pallet that we receive, and I cannot miss a box scanned.
So I have to be fully aware of what I’m scanning most of the time. I’m also doing other things in between just scanning these boxes, I’ve also got to open certain boxes, and check for shoe boxes. If there are any shoes, I must take them out and place them in another box for whoever is working on shoes to process and add sensors and what not.
Note from Aliya @archistudentnotes: Attention to detail is a skill being improved here as well as mutlitasking - both key for architecture
That’s just one thing. I still have to place the boxes I’m scanning on this rolling flex bed that slides down boxes. Other coworkers will receive these boxes at their stations and take out merchandise that is theirs to organize on their individual cart. All while this is happening, I am scanning all these pallets and boxes one by one, alone and that’ll typically take three hours to scan them all.
I’m a pretty strong and fast worker, which is also something I’m grateful for so I am not gonna lie, I can get a lot done at work.
Once I finish scanning all pallets and boxes, I’ve got to batch out the count, which is the total amount of boxes we’ve received, the higher the count the more hours we get, the lower the count the least amount of hours we get. After I’ve batched out the count, I’ll either help out in stations that are full, or help out in bulk which is an area for only big merchandise, if not any of those I’ll work on shoes.
That’s how I usually end most days, just finishing up processing merchandise and getting it ready to be put out on the floor and if we have time we will run them out onto the floor. That’s how a day can go at work, and I’ll end it the same way with dinner and getting relaxed and settled for the night.
Friday
Friday’s are typically relaxing for me knowing that I get to relax on the weekend.
While at work, if I’ve got enough money I will treat myself to some good lunch, either Chick-fil-A, McDonald’s or Jack in the Box which are my go to fast food restaurants lol.
Also on the days I do get off early from work and there’s a new movie that looks cool or interesting in theaters, I’ll sometimes go watch it for fun by myself. I typically would ask friends or cousins to go with me but I tend to think if they’re maybe busy, and since my job is right next to the theaters, I could just walk there and I also wouldn’t want to bother others if I feel like they’d be busy. On some days however I do ask others in advance to make plans to meet up.
But with summer ending soon, this entire schedule will be changing drastically in no time. I’ll type it out here so you’ll get an idea what that’d be like, including my work life ha.
Monday’s I’d work, only because I’m asking for that day to work, also because I’m gonna want to work the same amount of days during school.
Tuesday’s would be school. First class of the day starts at 10am, and my last class would end at 7:35pm….. I am taking four classes this semester by the way ;) Not sure how I’ll do it, but I got the confidence.
Wednesday is a work day.
Thursday’s would be school again, same schedule as Tuesday.
Friday would be working again.
Saturday I have one class in the afternoon from 9am to 12pm. So that right there is my whole week for this upcoming Fall semester of 2023. Ooof And my only full resting day would be a Sunday.
Well that’s what my week is like during summer break, and what it’ll be like for this upcoming semester in architecture.
Final note from the writer
I’m currently attending a community college and this semester will be my fourth year I believe, but I still got maybe about two and a half years left before I can transfer to my dream university here in my city at ‘New School or Architecture and Design’.
I’m a bit nervous, but mostly excited for the most part, I just want to make sure I know enough and learn a lot to be ready for university. I’ve definitely done my research, I’ve even read reviews from that university, there’s good and bad ones. Mostly bad but that doesn’t scare me or anything and I do get some type of nerves but none that make me back away.
I’ve always wanted to pursue this career of being an architect since I was a kid. I’ve also got big ideas and plans that I’d like to put out, from paper to making it a reality would be so cool!
Other than that, thank you for letting me express my archiweek!🤙🏼
And that’s the week!
Thank you so much to Felix Diaz for this weeks submission. As a student I also worked part-time during the summer where I could and definitely during term time. It was nice to read how Felix organised his time throughout the week around work whilst still keeping up with sketching and research in preparation for school to restart. It was also a great to read a week in such detail, really gave a sense of life around architecture which is just as important as the architecture life too.
If you’re interested in sharing your own ArchiWeek, your own reflection - click here!
