Hello everyone,
My name is Romain, and as you may have guessed it from the title, I come from the country of humbleness and croissant : France. Although I’m fully French I did fled the country when I was 15 to go to a place full of really humble people : Switzerland. After getting my Swiss diploma called «Federal Maturity» (yeah they like pompous name) I went to EPFL (one of Swiss greatest pride next to chocolate and Mount Cervin) to study Architecture. I wish I could say that it was my dream job since I was 2, that I am the regen of Le Corbusier or Mies Van der Rohe, but in reality this choice was quite random. I liked maths but not that much and I had an old box of colouring pencils at home so the choice seemed right.
After 3 years of intense work, beer drinking, model making, plaster casting, shitty hand drawing, and bad presentations I got my bachelors degree……. which is absolutely pointless because I can’t do anything with it ! *insert fool meme later*
As per requested by my university to enter a Master’s program, I started looking for an internship. Although I need to do 12 months, I wanted to divide it into 2 trainings of 6 months to be able to go abroad and stop eating cheese at every meal (they’re not doing that but I’m trying to incorporate as much cliché as possible for everyone to follow). The U.S and specifically New-York came quickly in the destination thinking process, and I started looking for an internship on April 2023, and man that was humbling.
Me, 21 years old, with a diploma of one of the best architecture faculty in the world, thought I would receive hundreds of phone calls begging me to join their practice. Spoiler : it did not happen.
Seriously, those 2 and a half months of looking for an internship were hard.But after dozens of emails sent ( I did not count precisely to save my mental health) I managed to have several opportunities and chose the one I was most excited for : LOT-EK. Their work mainly consist of reusing old containers to transform into homes, art gallery, public space… I just really liked their particular approach and it seemed like the right choice for the cultural ocean that New-York is in.
After this great news, I then started my quest of getting a J-1 visa. My supervisor of LOT-EK advised my several and I chose Architect-US. I knew the process was going to be long but since I started it at the beginning of June I thought I was okay. 2nd Spoiler : not that much
The first steps were quite easy, even though I had to give so much informations. Sonya was really present and answered all my questions quickly. It’s when the site visit came in ( since the office I am going in is small), that things took a wrong turn. The first visit was denied in the middle of August, and suddenly I was super late in the process. Luckily, Sonya helped me a lot programming an other visit, and acted really quickly to move things as fast as possible. The 2nd visit came in, and this time everything worked out! After that, the last step was the embassy appointment.
Luckily I managed to go the one in Switzerland since I have a residency permit, because the one in Paris offered me an appointment on the 5th of October (thanks to my home country you are the G). The appointment actually happened yesterday, and well allright since may visa has been approved ! Apart from waiting approximately an hour, and that the security guard was not cool, as long as you have the required documents with you, it will be completely alright.
As I am writing this first blog post, I am leaving in 2 days. Is everything ready for my departure ? Absolutely not, which is why I will now stop writing and start packing. Writing really makes me feel like a writer, just the type that is not famous and write an autobiography !
See u,
Romain
