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Dear Class of 2020,

I have been in mostly “stay home” life since January this year because of the challenging time. My biggest take away from it is that we can’t be isolated by physical distance or barrier; we are eager to connect with others. And nothing could be more cheerful than getting a greeting from a friend or family living far everyday. Please stay strong and support your loved ones, as well as yourself. At the end of the crisis, we will be even closer to each than anytime before.

I’m proud to be a graduate from Sam Fox School, and my friends and professors since then have always been supporting me in many situations. Same to all of you! I will be here if you need any help.

Best wishes and congratulations to your coming graduation!

My graduating class (’06) entered the job market during a recession that hit the field of architecture particularly hard. Luckily, our design education at WashU was so well rounded and process-based that it prepared us to enter an uncertain market with skills and perspectives students from other universities didn’t have. And while my class did have a graduation ceremony, when you remember or draw on you time at WashU, a sweltering day wearing a black polyester robe to mark your accomplishment isn’t what will be important to your success. It’s what you will do with your education that matters. So congratulations, Class of 2020. What will help you through this and will make you successful after this you already carry with you.

the world needs change makers and lovers and caretakers – and artists who are all of these, more than ever

goodness and grace will rise to meet you
and the you that you are, and the you that you will find
will be enough.

Los Angeles Program Director, ProjectArt

I am the LA Program Director for ProjectArt. We, like so many, took our content online. One of my teachers didn’t skip a beat and started Zoom classes with his teens. I joined in, and it was a wonderful meditative experience, and I’m so glad the bond with his students has not faded. I hope you know you will always have the bond of your fellow classmates, regardless of what is currently happening. This has been a wonderful time to reconnect with my friends from WashU, as well. We will all keep doing wonderful things in this world despite the “schedule change.”

Architecture grad ’73 and ’76: recession, stagflation, and no federal attempt to help the economy. Typical job interview back then: “WashU? Where is that? Can you draft?”

Be imaginative in the job hunt and continue the hard work WashU required, especially in design history and delineation. Architecture is about selling/telling stories through recognizable, dependable, and clear technical delineations. Rewards come from providing clients and employers more than they expect.

My early experience had a different kind of wild client, but imagine the opportunity if Joe Exotic or one of the other zoo owners in Tiger King was your client. First, work out a few programmatic items with animal rights, then provide for them the same respect, competence, creative design, and documentation you will later provide to any other individual, corporate, or institutional client. Have an engaged attitude.

Remember to provide good memories for the benefit of the WashU grads that will follow.

My first boss told me that the reason he hired me had nothing to do with my portfolio. “Oh, it’s not that it wasn’t a good portfolio!” he assured me when I looked distressed by the suggestion that my body of work wasn’t much of an asset. “I hired you because you were so poised during your interview.”

The reason that I could come off as “poised” in that situation was because I had just graduated from a prestigious school with an incredibly rigorous curriculum: WashU. My professors had lived in the world that they were preparing me for. I got a really solid education. As I met other young artists trying to enter the advertising business, it was clear WashU had given me a leg up. I had more skills, a stronger work ethic, an internship on my resume, and a portfolio that demonstrated I was ready for the work.

You have all of that and more, no doubt. Take heart. Go forth with confidence, poise even. You have a leg up. These four years of very hard work have been worth it!

I can relate to where you are and your thoughts of uncertainty. Here are some of the adages that I hold dear to my psyche to keep my momentum going forward:

1) Necessity is the mother of invention.

2) When the going gets tough, the tough get going.

3) Think outside the box.

I lost a couple positions at firms due to recessions. My dad happened to be an inventor, so I helped him with an idea during a recession and, admittedly, was subsequently surprised to find my name on a U.S. patent. All I thought I had done was present my drawing to Dad’s patent attorney.

Today, the son of my father’s patent attorney is my patent attorney. My ideas are the practical result of working at projects, mostly adapting to my environment. One of my inventions came directly from remembering a STRUCTURES class discussion. Resultantly, 30 years later, a simple, revolutionary idea was sparked. Look around your space, details are begging for improvement. Believe in yourself. Good luck!

Go out and make positive change and have a great story to tell your grandchildren about how you left college in this terrible moment only to rise above and find great success!

I live in New York City and have been told one of the epicenters of COVID-19. Although I am homebound now and will be for some time, my open window supplies the laughs of children playing. Be it in their secured backyards, it is a comfort. It makes me smile when often we do not these days. Birds chirp, kids laugh, I have turned off CNN. A new generation is starting despite this little hiccup, and we have a chance for a fresh start. Breath, relax, and look forward to the challenges you will have to face. If not for yourself, then for all of us. Cherish your education: It is so important.

We will all have to make changes in our lives, and I am confident that you will make the right ones. I am counting on it. Congratulations! We will be able to celebrate together soon. Until then, listen out your window, and you will hear the future: It is yours to define.

The last words Professor Ron Leax spoke to me the week before I graduated in 2001 were, “Never give in.” It set a concluding stamp on a chunk of memory I banked in my brain from my favorite mentor.  I wrote it down at the time, and I am glad to have that memory to draw strength from when I need it most.

May you, the graduates of 2020, find ways to remember the essential lessons your mentors at WashU created for you. This hiccup in your progress as a creative soul will only make you more determined to never give in.