Interior Architecture Students Kirsten Krowas | Heather Lipinski | Shari Vandomelen     irsten Krowas is planning to graduate December 2003 in Interior Architecture. She has been interested in design since the 8th grade, cutting out house pictures from magazines and playing on her Dad�s drafting table. She is from a farm family in Bailey�s Harbor, Door County where she spent after school time picking cherries, apples, plums, and pumpkins. She says that she learned the value of hard work there--perfect preparation for the IA major. Kirsten is the oldest of four children. Kirsten wants to find a professional position that fits her values and goals. She wants a challenging, fun, uplifting job with lots of international travel. She would love to see Africa and Tahiti. She wants to move to San Diego where she has relatives when she graduates. Since she already has electronic highways home to Door County, working so far from the home orchard wouldn�t be too bad. Kirsten wants to live her life to the fullest, embrace every opportunity that pops up, take chances, learn to ski-dive and to scuba. She enjoys being a happy person with an easy laugh, but is also prepared to be a hard worker. She warns students who think about this major that they have to love what they are doing because it takes a lot of hard work and time. She loves that there are so many opportunities in the field�design for residential, retail, hospital, restaurant, or facility management, company rep, retail lighting. Kirsten has learned both from classes, the faculty, and her own volunteer work with professional associations; she was President of the student chapter of the American Society of Interior Design (ASID) this fall. �I learned about networking, meeting people, getting involved, � she says. In fact, she credits her association with peers and faculty with helping her become more outgoing. Her high school friends might be surprised to see how outgoing she has become. She says, �A lot of people think that high school is the best of times. I think it is college instead. This is the time to make your best friends, the ones for life. And this is the time you learn so much about yourself.� eather Lipinski, a hopeful 2004 graduate of the interior architecture program knew when she was in 4th grade that she wanted to become an interior designer. During a �career day� interview with a relative who was in the interior design business, she was sold and never changed her mind, despite earlier interests in being a chef. From Cottage Grove, MN, Heather chose the UWSP program because she was impressed with the amazing quality of student work she was shown on a visit, as well as the very personal approach by the department head. Like many new freshmen, she was awed by the seniors� work. Heather wants to be successful in the field, making a living doing what she loves, probably in Minnesota near her family. She sees that interior architecture is much deeper, much more complex than she first thought. Interior architects actually help design spaces, not just decorate them. �You have to really love your work in IA, because you spend so much TIME on projects. Just looking at a project, you can�t believe that it took 30 hours,� she says. A naturally neat and organized person (�you won�t believe HOW organized,� chimes in Dean Joan North for whom she works), Heather has found that many of her peers in the IA program are more particular about details, not willing to let things end up any old way, not happy with the simply �acceptable.� She credits all her faculty members, but mentions Mark Nelson who just about lives on the 3rd floor where the IA studios are. Even his wife and son come around to check out students� projects. �He really cares and it shows,� she says. hari VanDomelen is a senior Interior Architecture major graduating in August 2002. Although she began her first year in psychology at UW Eau Claire, Shari switched to UWSP�s program her sophomore year. Like many majors in IA she knew when she was young that she wanted to go into some line of work where her creativity could be used. When her parents built a new house while she was in junior high school, she picked out all the finishes and loved it. Shari is interested in many areas of interior design at this point including commercial, office, residential, retail, hospitality, and healthcare design. Therefore, she wants to find a professional position that will expose her to a variety of environments. She plans to work in the field for fifteen or twenty years before possibly earning her master�s degree to allow her to teach interior design at the college level. Or she also may like to own a small design business one day. Regardless of where her future career takes her, Shari would like to remain living in Wisconsin because all of her family members are already settled here. She would like to do some traveling abroad whether it is for business or just for fun. Although Shari says it was difficult at first to be a transfer student, she would do it all over again to get to where she is today. Design is a career that will hold her interest and she can�t wait to see her designs built some day. Although the IA major is a difficult one, she feels that it is the best fit for her. �You really have to love what you are doing in order to make it in this major. It is a big time commitment and requires sacrifices and self-discipline and if you don�t have that, you won�t be successful in this program.� She feels that the major really does a great job preparing students for the professional world by letting them know what is expected of their work as well as their attitude. One thing that Shari likes best about the IA major is the feeling of family that comes along with the small group. �After you�ve had classes and spent long hours in the studio with all of the same people for a couple of years, you really get to know one another and become a close-knit group. You become a support system for each other when you are stressed over a project because each of us understands what everyone else is going through. Over the years it becomes almost like a little family.� �I don�t think I could really choose one single faculty member that has impacted me the most because each one has in some way. I really admire all of the IA faculty members and am thankful for everything they do for us to make our program so great. In a bigger program, you might feel like you are just a number but the IA faculty really make an effort to get to know you and really care about how you are doing in your classes, and how you are doing professionally after you graduate.�
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