Emily Cambron
Going into Architecture
Many young people are unsure of what career path to choose, or what to major in in college, however, this was never a question for Emily Cambron. Cambron had always known she wanted to pursue a career in architecture. Growing up in a neighborhood surrounded by construction, she was always interested in how buildings were structured and designed.
“I just found it fascinating that you could go from a piece of land with nothing on it and turn it into something as small as a house, or as large as a hospital,” Cambron explained.
Cambron received an undergraduate and master’s degrees in architecture from the University of Texas at Arlington. It is required to have a degree in architecture to become an architect, however, Cambron feels her current job is very different from what she did in school.
“I would say that school is nothing like what I do on a daily basis,” Cambron said. “School is very design oriented… I think a lot of people think that architects design buildings and that’s all…but most architects do not actually design buildings and are more involved in laying out the buildings and managing the drawing process.”
Career
Cambron began her first job working at a small firm that consisted of around 30-40 people. The firm primarily worked in apartments and town homes. Although this job was not exactly what she was looking for, Cambron felt it was a good experience that allowed her to explore different parts of the field of architecture.
“It was good to cut my teeth on something like that… I kind of realized pretty early on that I wasn’t interested in it.”
Working at this job Cambron discovered that she did not enjoy the repetitiveness of working with apartments, and said she felt the job was ‘very copy and paste’.
“Each new project didn’t really change much from one project to the next, because its apartments, they all have the same floorplan,” Cambon described.
After a year at the firm, Cambron left the firm to begin her current job at HKS Inc, an international architecture firm headquartered in Dallas, Texas.
She attributes her decision to change jobs to the size of the firm.
“I thought ‘I’ll try this for a year and if I don’t like it ill do something else.’ That is the benefit to a firm of that size, you can try all different types of projects.”
Currently, Cambron is the vice president at HKS. She works with the of a contractor to ensure that the building is built according to the drawings and clears up confusion if certain parts don’t align.
Cambron says her favorite part of her current job is the variation of projects she does on a daily basis and the challenging nature of working in the more complex healthcare side of architecture.
“One project I am most proud of is the Texas Health Resources Frisco campus… I really enjoyed that project. It is a hospital, a medical office building, and a parking garage all in one.”
Advice for Aspiring Architects
Research the architecture programs at colleges you choose to apply to:
“Different colleges have different mentalities about their architecture programs. For example UT is very design based, whereas A&M is more focused on the construction side. I would say have an idea of what type of architecture you want to do so you can go to a school that focuses on that.”
Understand that there will be more work after school before you can become a licensed architect:
“Once you get out of school you have to intern for a certain number of hours and work in certain sectors of architecture and then you have to take multiple licensing exams. A lot of people don’t realize that you don’t come out of school as a licensed architect.
