Caroline Vierheilig '27

Student: Caroline Vierheilig '27

Major: Architecture

Name of Project: Chelsea Boutique Hotel

What inspires you most as a student, and how does it influence your academic and personal growth? The things that have inspired me the most as a student are the conversations that I have with my peers. Having the opportunity to get to know so many different people with so many different perspectives and opinions has broadened my horizons both academically and personally. I feel that I have learned a lot through my peers and their own unique experiences and knowledge. When I’m stuck on a project and not sure how to move forward, sometimes a peer can lend an opinion or point out something that I hadn’t thought about. Other times, just talking with others about what they’re working on can inspire new ideas. Often, conversations with my peers have encouraged me to keep moving forward on my projects, even when it can be difficult to do so. The sense of community created by talking to others helps make challenging situations or projects seem a lot less daunting. These experiences have not only provided inspiration for my academic work, but have also helped shape how I collaborate and communicate with others.

Can you share something you are currently working on in your studies and why it is meaningful to you? Something that I am currently working on in my studies is a proposal for a boutique hotel design in Chelsea, Manhattan. This project is meaningful to me because it is the first project where I have had the challenge of taking all the information I have learned in my past classes and synthesizing it into a single project. In previous years, we learned about structure, construction, mechanical systems, and sustainable design strategies, but this project is the first time that I have had the opportunity to understand how these subjects apply in practice. I feel like I have gained a lot of clarity about how these aspects of a building work and the implications that they have on my designs. The project is also meaningful to me because it has not been a smooth or easy process. Through repeated changes and sometimes complete redesigns, each new attempt has been an important step in developing the project. Although it is certainly the most challenging project I have ever worked on, it is for that reason that it is special to me. 

What challenges have you experienced during your time as a student, and how have you worked to overcome them? One of the challenges that I have experienced during my time as a student is the fear of making a mistake or making the wrong decision when I’m working on a studio project. I have found that it can be paralyzing to start a project and have an endless number of possibilities that need to be narrowed down. There is always the uncertainty in the back of my mind about whether the design decisions I’m making are leading me down the wrong path, making it difficult to start. The only way I have been able to get past the fear and uncertainty of doing the wrong thing is to try. I’ve learned that pushing past the mental block of beginning a complex project and starting by doing anything at all, even if it’s not particularly good, is a necessary part of the process. Accepting that an idea might fail or lead to a dead end, but continuing to try again and again and build from what I’ve learned with each attempt has been difficult. However, in the end, it results in the main ideas of the project gradually becoming more refined and clearer. Throughout my time at NJIT, learning to be persistent and resilient when it comes to making iterations of my projects and accepting that mistakes will be made along the way has helped me as I continue to overcome the uncertainty of making decisions when there are endless possibilities.

How has receiving scholarship support impacted your experience as a student? Receiving scholarship support has impacted my experience as a student by lessening the financial worries that come with college tuition and other educational expenses. By receiving scholarship support, I can focus on academics and spend more time getting the most out of my classes without having the distraction of tuition and the additional costs that come with architecture school, like buying materials, presentation boards, or a desktop to do my coursework on. It has also meant a lot to me to receive scholarship support because it encourages me to continue to work hard and put my best effort forward in my classes.