Personal and professional references
Jan Szczesny – Reference from Architectural Designworks
“We first provided Jan with an opportunity for work experience for a week during the summer of 2024. As a small practice we were able to offer a wide range of experience during that week from front end design exercises, detail design and visits to current construction sites. In that first week Jan undertook exercises in learning on both autocad and Sketchup software as well as common admin software such as word and excel.
During that week Jan was polite, punctual, enthusiastic and inquisitive. He had a good grasp of three-dimensional thinking and picked up the software very quickly. He completed the task we set him with good presentation skills and showed some creativity such that he became a useful resource during that week-long experience. We therefore offered him a few hours of additional
work whilst we were busy which turned out to be on a minimum of one day a week for close to twelve months.
In those twelve months Jan continued to provide us with valuable resource and was involved in a wide variety of projects including nurseries, industrial sheds, residential and a number of projects in the leisure sector. He also worked across a wide range of RIBA stages from inception to on site inspections and continued to be inquisitive throughout. He was particularly keen to research any new products or any architectural terms as they were introduced to him.
He also has a better grasp of IT than we do and often researched and assisted us in dealing with IT niggles that ultimately improved our efficiency. He was also keen to learn and share new techniques in both autocad and sketch-up.
He continued to be punctual and enthusiastic throughout and clearly grew in confidence throughout his time with us. He was helpful is brainstorming on design layout problems and where we had not quite solved the design would often take it home and come up with solutions in his free time that would help us move projects on more quickly.
I believe that Jan will make a great architect and would have no hesitation in recommending him to potential employers.”
Mike Wakeman – Architect
Director
Architectural Designworks Limited
