Hi, I’m Laura, I joined ITU November 2020 – I’d been working as an architect for 13 years and had kind of lost my mojo and wasn’t sure what direction I wanted to take. I had some self limiting beliefs around fear of success (that other people wouldn’t like me if I was successful) which I’ve worked hard to get through this last year and that has been invaluable. I’ve also re-found my love for architecture and started a separate side hustle so I can get some financial freedom that will allow me to do what I want as an architect, although it’s not providing me that freedom yet. I’m just not sure what I want to do as an architect! Or if the side hustle is the best /fastest route to it, even though I enjoy it and I’m learning a lot my doing it.

I also studied maths before I did architecture and would like to explore what routes there are to using those skills to improve my architectural practice, maybe in the context of urbanism and public health?

On top of this I have a lovely family who are my top priority which kind of limits my time on things so I’ve been working through the ITU material slowly. I love learning new things and sometimes get distracted by shiny new things and knocked off course by other people’s enthusiasm for other stuff. I can easily talk myself out of things, but know when I find the thing that fits I can have laser like focus.

I’m looking forward to getting a clear path forward and stopping going round in circles.