January 15, 2025

Tell us about your current career—where are you working, and in what position?

Career! Bennington taught me that that's a silly word.

Currently, I'm living in Seattle, working as an "Associate Landscape Designer" at MIG, Inc. It is, unsurprisingly, a non-traditional design firm, so my projects and responsibilities range from: bilingual public outreach for parks projects; assisting visioning sessions for comprehensive planning updates for cities and Indian reservations; producing graphics and communication materials for "traditional" landscape design projects; clicking away in CAD, 3D modeling software, and Adobe Suite; and sometimes, knocking on doors of businesses to talk about what kind of neighborhood park they want/deserve. 

Does your current job relate to your Bennington education? 

My Plan was lovingly called "Change Through Architecture and The Arts." (Donald Sherefkin, my fearless mentor, pushed back against the use of colons. "You're a design student, so get to the point!")

My current job relates in the exact same way that my Plan related to my academic work at Bennington: I want to use design as a filter through which all my other interests can go through–and vice versa. Design by itself ain't it! It needs to be nourished by math, political (everything is political) science, visual arts, electronic music (to think about narratives and sequencing), and literature (to communicate).

Bennington College taught me to wear many different hats and capture many keys for the growing key chain.

How did your Field Work Term experiences connect to or inspire your current career path? 

Although I was an Architecture and Visual Arts student at Bennington, I worked at a college as a teaching assistant, at a non-profit arts gallery, and of course in some architecture internships.

After graduating, I actually worked about four-and-a-half years as a high school teacher in my home city of Guayaquil, Ecuador. These experiences have informed each other. For example: the opportunity to lead workshops at an arts non-profit with kids showed me how to communicate the importance of visual arts through self-expression, which in turn answered questions about pedagogy years before I even stood in front of a classroom.

All of those experiences complemented my soft skills of being excited when talking to strangers who want to share their opinions about their neighborhoods in my current job.

What are some of your proudest professional achievements and/or current goals?

I've been lucky to speak and present at landscape architecture and planning conferences about AI and its opportunities and challenges in these professional fields.

I'm not from the US, so I'm proud and privileged to be able to say that my experiences growing up in the global south (Ecuador) have informed my professional and personal decisions in intersectional and radical ways. Difference is embraced!

Do you have any career advice to share with current Bennington students? 

I have enough advice that my ego goes "Enough! The kids are alright (and so much smarter than you were back then." But, some thoughts:

• If it's scary, then it means it matters to you.
• Disenchantment is okay and expected; it signifies that your values are important and that you deserve better. 
• The cliché is real: you've already met so many of your future collaborators, colleagues, and partners in crime! They're your Bennington comrades. 
• And while we patiently wait for the weird implosion of late-stage capitalistic systems...you will get the salary you negotiate, not the one you deserve! So ask questions, push back, and get what you deserve!