I used to think I’d end up in a “normal” job.
In college, I studied architecture because it felt safe — a creative path with a clear career ladder. I pictured myself in a firm, working late over floor plans, arguing over budgets. It wasn’t thrilling, but it was respectable.

The problem was, I was miserable.

When the Blueprints Started to Blur

Around my third year, I started skipping my assigned projects to work on strange, hybrid ideas. I’d feed sketches into early generative software just to see what came out. My professors told me to stop “wasting time.”

That stung. But the truth was, those side experiments were the only things that made me feel alive in my work. They weren’t polished. Most of them failed spectacularly. But in those failures, I felt something I never did in my perfectly measured studio projects — curiosity.

The Scary Choice

When I graduated, I had two offers from architecture firms and one opportunity to work on an experimental AI art residency in Berlin. The firms were steady. The residency was short-term, unpaid, and terrifying.

I went to Berlin.

That decision didn’t magically “solve” my career. I came back broke and uncertain. But I had touched something I couldn’t ignore: the possibility that I could build a life out of the strange intersection of art, architecture, and code.

Why I Keep Going

People often assume I had a clear plan. I didn’t. I stumbled, I second-guessed, I watched friends pass me professionally. But every time I considered walking away, I remembered the feeling of seeing a design come alive — literally alive — in ways it never could on paper.

That’s why I keep choosing this work. Not because it’s easy. Not because it’s secure. But because when I’m inside it, I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be.