Centre for Construction and Engineering Technologies

I went to George Brown College in 1999. I studied the Architectural Technologist Program and graduated in 2001 as an Architectural Technician. The first summer after I graduated, I was offered a position as a Draftperson. After two years I decided to kind of move on and started getting involved more with the designing aspects of the projects. So I decided to leave and take my chance. I was lucky to gain a project right off the bat, which allowed me to kind of launch my company and then that allowed me to kind of be where I am these days. From my time at George Brown College, I've learned a lot of skills and a lot of lessons and I think the most important one that I still carry on with is networking and working with others. George Brown College is actually providing association member of the AATO class space in order to allow students - first, second, third year to start networking with, you know, the game players of the architectural industry. The teachers at George Brown College are a really interesting group of people and they were very motivational, and they were involved in the industry and they really reflected that within the classes and they really brought that into us as students. So they were kind of my first connection with the industry. The passion of being in the architecture, it's kind of embedded in me given the fact that my grandpa was a builder back in Italy. Since I was a young kid, I liked and enjoyed building things, drafting things, tree homes, whatnot, and my first project was my family cottage just out of Rome. It was kind of neat in, you know, seeing our lifestyle as a family being drawn on a piece of paper. If I were to give advice to a prospective student would be to make sure that this is what you want to do, this is the field that you want to get involved with and once you're in, make sure you love it, you have fun. George Brown College was definitely the main factor of my success at this point and allowed me to empower myself  to get out there in the industry and get myself a job and being part of the game.