Access the portfolio directly by clicking here.I started my internship from the 1st of July, 2019. Being someone working professionally for the very first time, I had mixed feelings about it. Nervousness, excitement, fear, etc. – to name a new. A lot of questions drifted in my head like, “Am I good enough for this, yet? What if I am not?”, “What happens if I don’t understand something which they already expect me to?”, “How does office culture actually look like?” and so on. Focusing my mind on the fact that this is a whole new spectrum of knowledge and growth, I joined the firm, got introduced to the staff there, got a work desk and a PC to work with. I was made to go through the firm’s recently completed projects and take a note of the design process and the design development. Overall, my internship period went smooth. I learnt a lot many things apart from the academic stuff. I came to know about the site terminologies and the language used by laymen on site. I realized the importance of this on-site language to convey the designer’s instructions to the working class. I learnt words like “katra” (word used to denote the diagonal 45° cut on door and window frames) and “doro” (a unit of measurement used by Gujarati workmen for very minute measurements on site. 1 doro = 3 mm). Apart from this, I learnt many other Gujarati on site terminology like, dhaar (meaning edge), laapi-astar (meaning putty-plaster), kopri / khancho (meaning offset), drashtikon (meaning perspective), ghisi (meaning groove) and L-kaani (meaning L-joint). Another area that my internship exposed me to was the way office culture functioned. Like, how hierarchy worked, how one got projects, how one interacted with clients on a one-on-one table discussion versus the same in a meeting, how one communicated with agencies, consultants and craftsmen and made them understand their ideas verbally by borrowing and using certain words from the layman’s vocabulary as well as drawing schematic on-spot sketches for them, the discussions with seniors and co-workers, etc. The overall idea of how a design firm functioned was explored for the very first time. My seniors also taught me how to talk to seniors, clients and workmen and the difference in the tone to be maintained in all of these three i.e. to be firm yet polite. My internship also taught me to work in harmony and as a team. I’m grateful for my team to treat me as a part of them and making me work equally too. In the course of my training, I was also asked to help in architectural projects so as to get a minor exposure of that field too and not be confined to just interior design projects. This helped me to grow not only as a designer but also as a person. I helped the architecture department as and when I was asked to, thus learning the differences and similarities in the working patterns of both the fraternities. I was also told and taught about different types of drawings when it comes to real life practice. that is the first design sketches which we as designers draw initially on our desks, the schematic refinement to these ideas upon discussion with seniors and colleagues, representational drawings to be discussed with the user in client meets and implementing the wanted changes respectively and finally the final working drawings prepared to the utmost technical accuracy as possible to be understood by laymen on the site. 1 | Page Another important thing that I learnt from my training was the difference that exists between real practice and campus life and I initially found it equally difficult to bridge that gap. As a design student, one is taught and encouraged to think more and think out of the box, considering the practicality factor too, of course, but the major focus is on how different and how away one can go from the mainstream. The practical world believes to govern all its decisions based on many practical factors like the material to be used, its availability, the overall budget of the project, the labor availability and its cost, the taste of the client, the maintenance of the built form after the project’s completion, etc. “God is in the details”, said Mies Ven dar Rohe. My office training made me agree to Mies very strongly. I lacked detailing skills when I joined the firm and was sort of petrified of the technicalities too. During the course of my training, my seniors helped me to understand these details and material as well as hardware specifications, thus making them easier to understand and making me curious to explore other alternatives of certain details in furniture pieces. I was also helped in the same by the use of sketches as well as made to observe the same in practical during site visits. I also attended various client meetings during my office training. I was taught to make client presentations, understand the site and the context and then try to decode the client’s preferences via various referential images collected and shown in the presentations followed by discussions on various layouts. Similarly, I also attended meetings with agency people and workmen. My seniors taught me how important it was to convey our thoughts and instructions to them by the use of their local language and drawing simple sketches on the spot facilitated in the process. Overall, I did learn a lot in my internship. To sum up, I learnt how to design and execute and the effort and process which goes behind designing a space on one’s drafting board to erecting the same on site. Apart from the academic knowledge, my training also taught me a lot of other things. It taught me the spirit of team work and the importance of respecting and considering everyone’s opinions and point of views irrespective of how much they differ from mine. It also taught me how important it is to stay updated on the advancements in technology and trends in order to be a step forward in the fraternity. I did enjoy and learn a lot in my training and I always will be grateful for all the opportunities I received to grow and perform.