Running a Marathon
Running a Marathon
by Gemma Gough
Graduate in Landscape Architecture
26.2 miles is a long distance
to run. As I have come closer and closer to graduating, I have been able to
think about these ventures outside of Seaton Hall that I want to accomplish.
Most people you talk to just think that running a marathon is a crazy feat to
put yourself through. Why would anyone want to run for multiple hours, over
26.2 miles of obstacles enduring not only Mother Nature, but also the
resistance of your own body? Well, I say that we have been running one
extremely hard marathon for the past FIVE years. When each of us applied to Kansas’s State’s College of Architecture,
Planning, and Design, it was not because we wanted to move into Seaton Hall, become
part of the studio cult, or reduce our health and life expectancy-it was
because we are a breed of people that lives for challenges and becoming the
best that we can be.
Running a marathon is a lot like our experience in Seaton Hall. Both are experiences that require dedication, endurance, and passion. In a marathon and in Seaton, everyone starts out fresh and fully inspired, at the halfway point everyone is wearing down but still running at a steady pace, and by the last few miles everyone is exhausted, running out of fuel, and wondering how he/she ever ended up in this situation!
Our journey started in a remote corner of the Seaton world where we were in a large group of rookies, all of whom had no idea what we were getting ourselves into. We were fully equipped with straight-edges, fancy pencil sharpeners, and exacto knives. This first year we pushed ourselves harder than we ever had before. I know my parents were concerned when I came home with slices all over my fingers, but I finally managed to convince them it was from my inept model building skills. Second semester rolled around and suddenly we had to decide which profession we wanted to join - did I want to be an artsy Interior Architect? An outdoorsy Landscape Architect? Or a straight-line Architect?
I am still happy to say that I chose Landscape Architecture. I still remember second year when I was drawing a master plan with precision and accuracy and a fifth-year student told me Landscape Architects do NOT use rulers. Since that point every line that I have drawn has had ‘character’ and a couple of kinks. Well, second year turned into third year, which turned into fourth year. We had evolved from getting stuck with the last desks in studio to being pretty darn close to the windows and the upperclass locations; we had been on many woodies walks (yes, we were the group strolling the extent of campus examining plant material); we had spent numerous hours in the snow on campus searching for survey points; and we had exhausted infinite days deciphering AutoCAD for construction class. Our own ability to speak ‘landscape architecture’ was rather extensive by this point also! To most people, CDs are circular disks listened to for entertainment, not Construction Documents; using colored pencils or markers is called coloring, NOT rendering; and grading a site involves ranking it on a scale from A to F, right?
Fifth year finally started. Somehow we had made it to being the old and experienced ones. I remember as a second year thinking how knowledgeable and revered the fifth years were, but as the fifth year I just felt like the only difference was that I was slower and more wrinkled than them. Fifth year has been the year where all the power bars in the world were not going to motivate us to work. Having eight months away from Seaton Hall to study abroad or intern made coming back a struggle. The great thing though was that we got to take classes outside of Seaton! Golf, wine-tasting, boxing, and under-water basket weaving are just some of the highly educational classes we landscape architects used keep ourselves on the path to graduation.
Many people have endured this race with us. Our families and friends outside of Seaton Hall have been on the sidelines cheering us on and keeping us motivated. Our professors have been our coaches. They have fed us information, allowed us to run with it, then met us at each and every water station to critique and help us develop and continue to move forward. The people who have been running alongside me, the friends and family I have gained in Seaton Hall, are the ones this race would have been impossible without. Some people dropped out of the race within the first week as they realized the course was too rocky for them, but for those of us who endured the stresses and surpassed the obstacles, we created relationships unlike any others. Before joining the College of Architecture, Planning, and Design, I was part of a family of five, my mum, dad, and two younger brothers. But since joining the college and specifically landscape architecture, I have gained at least sixteen brothers and a sister. I have loved, hated, been frustrated with, laughed with, travelled with, and partied with these people for five years. I have never spent this kind of time with even my own siblings! Just having these people alongside me sharing every waking minute, sharing shouts of joy and screams of pain as we climbed hills and overcame cramps, made all the difference. Running a marathon, 26.2 miles is a draining experience, but running the marathon with an amazing support crew made the experience so much more rewarding.
Just like in a marathon, we were all fresh off the starting line, and along the road we came upon many obstacles, some that made us want to stop and not go any further, but together we overcame those obstacles. We may have lost many hours of sleep, missed out on several social events, and developed an addiction to coffee and energy drinks, but we have gained lifelong friendships, an unbelievable work ethic, and are finishing with a diploma from a top design school in the nation. We are going to accomplish great things in our lives. We ARE a breed of people that live for challenges!
Congratulations class of 2008, you just crossed the finish line!