I graduated from a reputed Government college of India in 2015. I spent five wonderful years of my B.Arch, thinking that I am learning so much, preparing for what lies outside the gates of the campus. Along with the studies during college hours, we interacted with each other in our hostel and made friends forever.
Girl’s hostel is a place where you meet women with whom you can share all your secrets, get life advices, relationship advices, make-up advices and so much more. We thought, we had the perfect college life. If not perfect, at least we were much better off than the Boy’s Hostel, with all the drinking and brawling and unhygienic washrooms. At least, this is what we thought. But, there was one thing that we were deprived of, that was discussed in plenty in the Boy’s Hostel and scarcely in the Girl’s Hostel. That is: Technical and career advices. It is a common thought, that men are more technically sound women. After spending so many years in a technical college, I cannot disagree more with this. We had some genius female brains amongst us, who could easily beat any guy in technical knowledge. These girls often topped their classes and outshone everyone. But still, we never had night long talks about startups and innovation.
Being an architecture student, we were often inclined towards different software like AutoCAD, Sketchup, Revit, Photoshop etc. Though, our academic curriculum included teaching these software, the teaching was restricted to a very basic introduction. It was often left to us students, what software we wanted to use for our submissions. Our knowledge started from AutoCAD, rose to Sketchup, with photoshop on the side to compose sheets and that is it. That is where the Girls Hostel’s knowledge peaked. Whereas, the boys of our batch moved on to learn Revit, Rhino, Grasshopper and so much more. I was not able to understand, why this difference grew so much for a long time. But I understood it later, unfortunately, much later.
Where we were busy talking about relationships and dressing and make-up, boys of our class were talking about software, startups and well established architecture firms. We were content with the tools we knew, mainly because, in the end, our sheets looked more presentable than the boys’ (not true in all cases though) and we were able to complete the task at hand within the given timeline and scored equally as boys. It never came to our mind to extend our software knowledge beyond what was taught in classrooms. Our seniors never talked about this with us. Our batchmates never talked about this with us. Even our teachers never talked about this with us. Many boys did their thesis on Revit or Rhino, made their models by CNC cutting, where we were still using AutoCAD and Sketchup. We had the prettiest trees though. When we graduated, only one girl in our batch knew Revit, that also, because she took the initiative to approach a senior boy to guide her with it. Even now, working in the field, I see this difference. Much less percentage of women go on to establish their own businesses, or upskill themselves from time to time, thinking what they know is enough to get the job done. But what about growth? Why is there this difference in ambition? Why are we so scared to get our hands dirty? To try something new?
I wish I had this clarity when I was in college. In that way, I wouldn’t have been so lost when I started my career, would have had a better direction as to where I want to take my career, and would have guided my juniors in a better way to have a better career of their own. I don’t know if this was the case with just my hostel, or is it a general scenario. I don’t know if college is the place where this difference starts to grow. But, the difference is quite evident to me in the professional field.
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