On any given Monday at 3 a.m., Mississippi State University’s campus is dormant. Except for the occasional smoker in front of the dorms, there are not any people or lights to be seen.
But at the intersection of Barr Avenue and B.S. Hood Road, a solitary, unceasing light burns. This corner is home to Giles Hall-the building that never sleeps.
The building is home to the School of Architecture. The architecture program is not a typical undergraduate degree. It is a five-year program that offers a professional bachelor of architecture degree leading to architectural licensing.
Students must be accepted to both MSU and the School of Architecture itself. Admittance is on a competitive basis among incoming freshmen.
However, those not accepted into the design-studio sequence can still enter as pre-architecture students. They take other required freshman courses, attend summer design classes, and apply to join their class in second-year studio the next fall.
One reason for the competitiveness is that MSU offers the only architecture program in the state, said Lessa Woodroof, administrative assistant to the associate dean.
“We have the reputation for being one of the best programs in the country,” Woodruff said.
Alison Cunningham, a third-year architecture student, said she chose MSU because it offered the most value.
Cunningham is referred to as a third-year student, and not a junior. Students in the program are classified by what required curriculum they have completed instead of how many hours they have taken.
Thus, a student who transferred may have a junior level standing but is only in the first-year studio.
Architecture students have a set curriculum for each semester, with a minimum of five 18 hour loads. Every semester, all students are required to take studio on Monday, Wednesday and Friday from 1-5 p.m.
However, despite the full schedule and four hour studio, the majority of time devoted to architecture comes from outside of class, second-year student Kirby Davis said.
“Even on days that I don’t have class until 2 p.m., I wake up at 8 a.m. and try to get there by 9 (a.m.),” Davis said. “Sometimes it will be 9 (p.m.) that night or even 2 the next morning before I leave.”
And for architecture students, “all-nighters” are not reserved for final exams.
Anthony Garcia, a second-year student, said he spent “too many nights to count” working at the architecture building this summer.
“I have pulled three all-nighters since I started this fall,” Garcia added.
“If I pull an all-nighter, I usually get to the architecture building about noon, and I work until six or seven the next morning,” second-year student Casey Sibley said. “I’ll only take a break to get something to eat.”
“Sometimes you’ll get so caught up in your work that you’ll forget to eat dinner, and when you look at the clock it’s already after 10,” Davis chimed in.
Students’ projects are often evaluated by jury. According to Associate Professor John Poros, jury is “a public forum where a student gets up in front of several of the professors and sometimes fellow students to give a small presentation about their design.”
“The purpose is to help the students find new avenues of thinking about the work,” Poros explained.
Davis said that students have to go into the juries with the right frame of mind.
“[The professors] are very critical of your work, and you have to be able to learn from it,” Davis said. “Even knowing how much you’re going to learn from their comments, it’s a tough thing. People are known to cry.”
Even after the extensive time put into a project, Sibley said she tries not to take the critiques personally.
“Going into the jury, you know there are going to be things you want to change about your project,” Sibley said. “So you don’t go in there expecting them to say that it is perfect.”
Between perfecting projects, preparing for juries and pulling all-nighters, architecture students have a full schedule.
“I don’t know anyone who actually has a job and does architecture,” Davis said. “I don’t think it is possible.”
However, despite the difficulty and arduous lifestyle, architecture students say it is worthwhile.
Garcia says that if you love it, you forget about the long hours and focus on the project itself.
“Architecture challenges your mind, and makes you use your creative talents that otherwise would probably lay unused,” Cunningham said.
So why is it that the lone light each night is at the Giles Architecture building? It is because there is always at least one devoted student pouring their time and energy into a project.
As Davis said: “Sometimes you forget to eat, and sometimes you forget to sleep, but you never forget architecture.”