Aloha from Kona, Hawaii! This is Kari Kimura (MArch ’95) and Shaun Roth (MArch ’95) reporting on our recent experience hiring a current MIT MArch student for the summer.
We have a small architecture firm with just the two of us, luxury residential on the Big Island is our niche market. In May we posted a remote summer internship opportunity with MIT Director of Career Development Paul Pettigrew (MArch ’88) and was able to connect with 2nd year MArch student Courage Dzidula Kpodo. Courage worked for us remotely for six weeks this summer, then came to visit us for five days in Kona.
We can easily say this experience has been one of the most meaningful connections to MIT Architecture since we graduated in 1995.
It was invigorating sharing our current work and challenges with a graduate student who exemplifies the best qualities of MIT students: capable fast learner, interested in the details of making it real, curious about everything, compassionate world view. We had long discussions on the current teachings of MIT studios as we showed Courage our grad school portfolios and shared what we had learned in studio with instructors: Jack Myer, Fernando Domeyko, Maurice Smith, and Jan Wampler.
While visiting us in Kona, we all took a tour of an abalone farm at Hawaii Ocean Science & Technology Park which was informative and particularly delicious! We went there specifically because Courage already knew that his fall studio project had something to do with a Maine oyster farm. He recently sent us pictures from his studio site visit to Maine.
We also visited the Donkey Mill Arts Center, one of our pro-bono passion projects. We talked about finding the balance between paying the bills and making contributions to the fabric of the community.
Before leaving Kona for Honolulu (and then Cambridge), we reached out to Bundit Kanisthakhon (MArch ’98) who invited Courage to meet up with his University of Hawaii architecture students at Magic Island. And then Wendy Kameoka Noblett (MArch ’96) in Cambridge to give Courage a tour of architecture firm Charles Myer & Partners (and an introduction to Toscanini’s ice cream).
We honestly didn’t know how our posting of a remote internship would work out. Well, it worked out quite well and we are glad we did it.