CLEAN SWEEP: On Sunday, Dec. 15, Emily Kahn cleaned out her studio for the final time. Studio clean out is annual, as the students pack up for winter break and prepare for a new studio the next semester; however, since Emily is graduating in May, she will not be returning to studio after the break. “I had sort of come to terms with the fact that I was going to move out, so it wasn’t as sad as I had thought it was going to be,” she said. “It was cool being there with [my family]. I loved showing [them] what it was like and it felt very important to have [them] there with me.”

TAKING CHARGE: It started as a quest for interior design. From a very young age, Emily Kahn, conscious of a desire for the design world, scheduled meetings with interior designers to explore the field, but it turned out the interior designers operate under the architects. So from her talks sprouted a new plan. “I thought, well, I’m an oldest child, and I do like being the boss,” Emily said. “So maybe I don’t want to report to the architect: maybe I want to be the architect.” Ever since she learned about architecture, Emily had a dream. Admitted to UT on April 1, 2021, she began on the path to architecture the following year, five years of schooling ahead of her to reach a Bachelor’s of Architecture. Four years under her belt so far, Emily began to question whether she was on the right course. “I came back from a really exciting summer and felt like I was just going through the motions in studio and wasn’t really finding much joy in it anymore,” Emily said. “I wanted to see if I could graduate early because if I wasn’t finding joy in the studio, was I really going to find joy in the profession?” Emily is now getting a Bachelor’s of Science in Architectural Studies when graduating in the spring. This will allow her to get a job working in a firm to try it out, and then attend graduate school if need be. Emily was not expecting to receive validation for her decision, but has been overwhelmingly supported and backed up. “Emily is taking control of her life and decided very actively to pursue something,” said Jeff Kahn, Emily’s father. “I’m proud of her for making a bold decision.”

THE WRITING ON THE WALL: A green chalkboard stands in the corner of the studio. The words, “Emily is the best!” sprawl across the top in loopy cursive, above drawings of SpongeBob characters left by students. It was the first thing Emily Kahn’s mother, Becca Kahn, did upon entering the studio. “I just wanted to mark that Emily was leaving studio and indicate that I think she’s the best!” Becca said. “I’m really excited for her, and I think it’ll be really fun to see what she does next.” Becca mirrored her daughter’s mixture of enthusiasm for anticipation with a recognition of the significance of the moment. “It was a bittersweet moment because endings and beginnings that are mixed up in each other are always bittersweet.”

BUILDING FRIENDSHIPS: Throughout her journey at the University of Texas at Austin, Emily Kahn has found that the world of architecture school is naturally highly competitive. “When you find people you can be friends with, it’s the best thing, because those people don’t exist everywhere,” Emily said. “I found a couple of those people, and I feel very lucky to know them.” Among them is Tina Alley, with whom Emily has secured a tight bond. The two have spent countless hours working together. “I think the definition of friendship changes when you go to college,” Emily said. “You just form deeper friendships with people because you’re living so much more life and you’re away from what you know. Your friends become your family!”

NEW HEIGHTS: Atop the tallest building in the city, the University of Texas at Austin’s architecture students stand in a freezing fog. Sixth and Guadalupe, 76 stories of unfinished structure was a terrifying and exhilarating place to visit. Student Emily Kahn was under the impression that her cohort was simply taking a tour of the site, and that’s one way to explain it. They piled into a shaky service elevator, moving at a rocketing speed as they passed level after level of the building. “We got to the top, and I felt this breeze, and this breeze was cold,” Emily said. “And I thought, ‘There are no walls up here, and we are about to walk onto a platform in the sky.’” Although she gets sweaty palms retelling the story, every time she drives past Sixth and Guadalupe, she thinks about how she has been to the top of it—the tallest building in Austin.

LESSONS LEARNED: Emily Kahn found architecture in college to be frustrating at times, specifically regarding the content structure. The majority of the time was laid into one focus—for instance, the design—rather than delving into multiple facets of the field. “I found that I was engaging with architecture on a very surface level,” Emily said. “It wasn’t as in-depth as I had hoped I could have been thinking about it.” Graduate school runs differently, however, and she hopes to explore more of an interdisciplinary focus when attending school at this level in the future. That being said, Emily does have a lot to owe to the studio experience. “What I really learned from studio was just to start creating something,” Emily said. She was also surprised to see how intertwined with the human experience architecture is. Everything goes into account—from the color schemes to ceiling heights of a space—that can subconsciously affect the human psyche. This is one of the joys she finds in the discipline. “I think everybody in their profession would say that they want to give back to their community or affect humans in a positive way—I just didn’t think it would be through architecture,” Emily said. “But it’s a pleasant surprise and something I didn’t realize until I started going to school for it.”

MOVED OUT: Sketches, rulers, pencils and bottles of tacky glue lie piled into bags on the floor beside Emily Kahn’s desk. She’s packed up and ready to go. She was among the last of her studio to move out, and while the room is prepared for the next round of students, for the moment it is bare. “There’s something really poignant about standing in the middle of an empty living space that you’ve just spent months living in that’s now empty,” said Jeff Kahn, Emily’s father. “You’ve spent a lot of time and energy, meeting new people, having experiences; it was full of life and vibrancy, and now it’s empty—it’s gone. There’s another chapter behind it fortunately, but it feels like something’s closing.”

MOVING ON: Hefting bags carrying memories and diligence, Emily Kahn walks out of her studio for the last time. She still has a semester of classes ahead of her before graduation, but the studio portion of her collegiate experience has concluded. “I feel like it hasn’t fully hit me,” Emily said. “I wasn’t expecting to almost be done with college, but I think it’ll hit me next semester when all my friends who are still in the program are getting their [studio] lottery results, and I realize this is the last first day of classes I’ll have.” She’s on the home stretch. It’s thrilling knowing what’s ahead, but the reality is also settling in for her family. Throughout college, Emily has lived in an apartment on campus. Her whole life, she’s never been more than 15 minutes away; however, as she leaves this time behind and heads into a new chapter, there’s some uncertainty. “It still feels like we have Emily, like she’s still close by, but I am concerned about how I’m going to feel when she actually moves away,” said Jeff Kahn, Emily’s father.

HOOK ‘EM! Five months until she takes the real world, and there’s a lot in store for Emily Kahn in the upcoming time and in what follows. Shifting from the studio, she will finish up her time at the University of Texas at Austin in classes such as physics, environmental philosophy, anthropology, an architecture topics class, as well as government. Post graduation, she hopes to get a job working in a firm, looking at either Austin or Boston. If she likes it and decides architecture is ultimately the path for her, she will attend graduate school to earn a professional degree and be able to get licensed. “I’m excited to get out there and start seeing what the professional world of architecture is like!” Emily said.