Norwalk Community College

Spotlight

John Bermudez, Architectural Engineering Technology, 2015

3D CADD, Interior Rendering

I remember when I was about 10 years old, I overheard my father talking about building an addition to the second floor of our house, and that sparked my interest. Ever since I can remember whenever I wanted something, I would make a sketch of whatever it was I wanted; letters to Santa Claus were no exception. So after the seed was planted in my head by my father’s conversation, I decided to take upon myself the task of designing the addition, draw plans and build a model of our house that would include the addition.

Even though I had no knowledge of what I was doing, I took rough measurements of the house and began drawing to the best of my ability; when I was finished with what I thought was a good plan, I asked my mom to take me to the art store to buy supplies to build the model. After finishing all this I was able to use this project for my art class in the school I was attending at the time; the project was a success and some of my classmates were very interested in knowing what materials I had used to build the model and how I came up with the idea. Nevertheless, no matter how proud my parents felt about my accomplishment and how much my classmates liked my project, the addition was never built. (Welcome to the world of Architecture.)

From there my interest started to wander around other things like sports, music and later airplanes. On the day I visited the art store to buy the materials for the house model; I could not help to notice a small room at the end of the arts and architectural supply shop. The father of the architect, who owned the shop, had a small room with model airplanes and supplies to build your own. He would build the models and sell them there, so needless to say I began designing and building flying model airplanes myself; this stage of my life lasted for a long time, and it even made me consider joining the military to become a fighter pilot, however, my love for designing could not be turned off. In an effort to join both disciplines I went to college in Colombia to become a Mechanical Engineer, after two years and due to certain philosophical, and existential reasons, I told my parents that my future was not there but in The United States of America. I am very lucky to have a very supportive family, so both my parents and my sister gave me their encouraging thoughts in order to fuel my new endeavor, and this is how a new chapter of my life began.

After a few months of living here, I joined a company in Norwalk, CT and worked for them for a couple years as a Process Engineering Tech, and despite the fact that it provided a good source of technical challenges to which I was able to apply my knowledge and problem solving abilities, it lacked the design aspect that I have always loved so much.

Then after things seemed to be working fine, the event that changed my life happened. In one of my favorite movies “The Matrix” (I love movies) there is a line that I like very much “Everything that has a beginning has an end” (I love Philosophy as well); well the end had come for the company I was working for, at least for the Norwalk branch which ironically was the first created. Fortunately, some options were offered. Some of us were asked to move with the company to Pennsylvania, or stay here and go back to school; well I opted for the second choice.

I feel like my life has come full circle and back to my first love “Architecture”. When I was offered the option to go back to school all I could see myself doing was Architecture, so I enrolled in the Architectural Engineering Technology program at NCC, and for the last two and half years I have had the time of my life doing the things that I love the most (besides rock climbing) learning and designing. I feel extremely privileged for having this opportunity and also very fortunate for the quality of the knowledge I was able to obtain at NCC, thanks to the professionalism of its faculty.

Now, my journey continues at a different college perhaps NYIT, where I will be pursuing the Master’s degree in Architecture and fulfilling my childhood dreams.