Learning by Teaching

Goody Clancy is entering our sixth-year hosting high school interns in collaboration with Boston’s Private Industry Council (PIC). The PIC partners Boston public high school students with employers throughout the city for paid summer internships and design thinking bootcamps.

Every year, we are grateful for the opportunity to support students as they explore their interest in design. Pursuing an education in architecture is too often cost restrictive and complicated, limiting access for socioeconomic minorities. Our profession benefits from multiplicity; we want to accelerate representation of underrepresented communities. We believe this is possible by supporting early exposure to the profession. Our goal is to encourage a more diverse workforce to envision their path through architecture. The PIC has created a valuable pathway for outreach through their “bootcamp” workshops and summer internship program.

Twice a year Goody Clancy participates in a week-long “design thinking bootcamp” for high school students interested in architecture. This workshop is a collaborative effort between Goody Clancy, the PIC, Boston Society for Architecture, HMFH, Finegold Alexander, and Sasaki. Each day students are introduced to fundamental design concepts. Goody Clancy teaches student about model building, encouraging them to explore space and sculpture to understand spatial relationships.

For the past six summers, Goody Clancy has hired two high school students to join our team as interns. While each firm structures their summer differently, our program is broken up into three pillars: Intro to design fundamentals, developing sketching and communication skills, and real-world project work.