For decades the architectural profession has struggled with making internship more meaningful. The question was raised in 1975 when the IDP Coordinating Committee was formed, and lingers today: How must one make the transition from education to practice? Is an intern simply “any individual in the process of satisfying a registration board’s training requirements,” as defined by NCARB? While it does characterize the process, it leaves me a bit disappointed.

Internship is regarded as a process of becoming. You are neither here nor there. I acknowledge that human existence is about becoming. Time perpetuates our experience, and inherently, nothing remains fixed. However, humans also value achievement, and a sense of being. Being an architect is all I wanted at six years old, and today at 25 I am at least one year away from this dream. So what am I now? Am I just “in the process?”

Today I want to be. I believe that forging stronger ties to those who follow us as well as to our mentors can establish an identity for internship, and strengthen the experience. Architecture students have a sense of being that comes with enrolling in an institution, sharing a camaraderie among peers, and interacting within a stable student/teacher relationship. Architects have this sense of being as well, having passed an exam, earning the title “Registered Architect,” and perhaps running their own practice.

Through close interaction with my IDP mentor I realize that every day one gains knowledge of the profession. One never stops learning, and even as an intern, one can become a resource for both students and architects. While having been exposed to practice, yet not far removed from academia, the intern is in a unique position to, in a sense, keep a finger on the pulse of architecture. We are well versed in the latest computer programs, learned in the current avantgarde theories, yet we know how to check shop drawings, and are all-too familiar with redlines. We bring a perspective to the profession that others can draw upon.

While IDP has established the mentor/apprentice relationship, it lacks in linking experienced interns with students. We can visit campuses as representatives of our firms, allow students to shadow us instead of our superiors, and host events such as lectures or exhibitions that educate students and architects about our internship experience. The gap between education and practice, while addressed in various ways through IDP, will always exist as long as internship is in isolation as a process of becoming something else and not of being who we are.