Architecture Alums Return to Share Wisdom With Students and Each Other

These weren't your ordinary cookies served at the Hillier College of Architecture and Design alumni event last week.

About a dozen alumni turned out to share their career stories with students, each other, faculty and staff. Some stood out — such as architects who found their callings in building inspections, historical consulting, marketing, airport design and youth mentoring — but the crowd was most transfixed on Leslie Marchio '06, M.S., who's on her way to stardom as a cookie artist.

Marchio was a designer at Warren, N.J.-based Beer & Coleman which specializes in custom luxury homes. She earned her graduate degree at NJIT while pregnant with her first child. She soon had three more children, became a dog owner along the way and searched for an artistic outlet during her time away from work. That led to her company name, Four Peas and a Dog, plus unintentional minor celebrity status when she began appearing in cookie competitions on television. She now makes a living teaching cookie art and continues competing around the world.

Marchio said alumni interactions with students are valuable on multiple levels. "I feel that these events are valuable not only for the students, but also the alumni. Alumni can provide the students with the realities of business restrictions — timing, politics, cost and demand — as well as show just how far the branches of architecture and design can reach," she observed.

"Students bring us a fresh outlook on creative and free thinking. That sometimes is lost when we're in the daily business grind," she added. "Overall, these events are wonderful for networking and exposure for everyone."

Marchio demonstrated her craft. She brought along a simple sugar cookie and traced the NJIT logo onto it using a digital projector, edible red paint and a scribe tool to tweak the fine details. Most of her designs are more complicated, such as clever couple's designs for Valentine's Day.

Architecture skills such as listening to clients, planning the design, using the right tools and fine attention to detail all serve her well. Her career is just one example of why fellow alumni Andre Pause '09 referred to a Bachelor of Architecture major as a renaissance degree. Pause works at Davis Brody Bond as a graphics manager.

I am thoroughly impressed with the variety of career paths our alumni take from their degrees

Keith Kennedy '11 is not a Hillier graduate. He attended the event as a Newark College of Engineering graduate, although he took elective courses in Hillier. He now works at architecture firm Mancini Duffy as vice president of strategy. Following his own example of not being confined to your direct field of study, he urged students to keep their minds open, not just career-wise as he did but also for what students may experience in college generally.

"You don't need to solve everything, especially at the level of being in college. Try things," Kennedy said, even if they seem pointless in the moment.

Maya Gervits, director of Hillier College's Barbara & Leonard Littman Architecture, Art and Design Library, organizes the event every semester. Last week's session focused on architecture, so she is hoping to hold another event in April focusing on the art and design side.

Regardless of the specific focus of each such event, she said, "I still hope to illustrate a variety of paths that our students can choose and demonstrate that it is up to them to be entrepreneurial, creative and active in building their professional careers."

Sydne Nance, a third-year student working toward her B.Arch. degree, said the events are helpful. “I have attended three of the Tea with Alumni events during my time here at NJIT. Every time I am thoroughly impressed with the variety of career paths our alumni take from their degrees, one of the most unique being the cookie decorator from Four Peas and a Dog," she said.

"This group of alumni really honed in on the idea that as HCAD students we receive exposure that is hard to come by in other majors or at other institutions," Nance added. "Overall, the skill sets we are learning at HCAD are going to prepare us for any passions we may have, even if these passions end up being outside of a Bachelor of Architecture degree."