A Day in the Life: PAYETTE Interns

Sharmeen Khan

I was recently asked to do a “Day in the Life at PAYETTE” for the Northeastern Architecture Instagram account as a way to break down the barriers that separate the professional world from the academic world. Often students are curious about firms but don’t really get a chance to know what it is like to work there. I wanted to showcase the best of the best of PAYETTE culture in a one-day video blog to show the Northeastern students that work environments don’t necessarily need to be so far off from what they are used to in their academic studios. 

I started by planning, with help from the other interns, the key elements I should focus on in the office. After a lively discussion, we chose a day that best represented a variety of office-related activities and groups such as Office Hours, WID, YDC, Snack Tuesday and Thirsty Thursdays). On the day of filming, we were able to encapsulate a lot of different aspects of PAYETTE’s culture as well as conduct brief interviews with our various co-chairs. 

Nik Romano and I split the day in half to show different perspectives of the office as well as gauge different people from the various architecture years at Northeastern. I focused on the morning showing off what it is like to start your day in the office, some of my tasks and the Women In Design (WID) lunchtime event. 

It was fun to film around the office, although at first it felt a little strange. In the end, it was a great opportunity to talk to people on a variety of projects as well as showcase what PAYETTE has to offer recent graduates. It was important for me to show what I thought were the unique aspects of PAYETTE in this small Instagram takeover because I wanted Northeastern students to be able to see what lies beneath the projects currently under construction around our campus. 

Nik Romano

For my half of the project, I recorded and explained the work I am doing, as well as a bit about PAYETTE’s excellent location in Boston—my Seaport Trader Joe’s visits are a very important part of my internship. Constructing the schematic design model for the Drexel University project was a huge undertaking, and I am glad I could show a bit of the process, as well as the finished product. I also emphasized the variability of my tasks, mentioning the bulk of my work is spent changing the Revit model or making diagrams in Adobe Illustrator.

Sharmeen and I sit in different areas within the office and working with her on the Instagram Takeover quickly familiarized me with her day-to-day. While she works on the Northeastern University EXP project, which is currently in construction administration,  my project is for Drexel University’s new health science building is in schematic design. An intern’s role is varied and ever-changing, always adjusting to our project team’s needs, cultivating fresh, daily excitement and a constant process of learning by doing. But despite the many different roles I have filled, I found out through working with Sharmeen that there are even more that I have yet to try. I look forward to seeing where the rest of my internship takes me, and learning about others’ experiences along the way.