On today’s episode of Architectette we welcome Hosts of the Open Plan Podcast- Maria Pastorelli and Emily Khalid.
Maria and Emily met during grad school at Georgia Tech and have continued their friendship and podcast collaboration despite working in Atlanta and Philadelphia respectively.
Emily is a Lead Architect and Project Manager at WSP, Maria is an architectural designer with a background in marketing. Their podcast conversationally bridges the gap between professional development, licensure, and lifestyle.

We talk about: 
- The origins of Maria and Emily’s friendship and how the podcast developed from their conversations about school, work, and exam prep. 
- We next chat about a huge focus of the podcast: the AREs. Emily talks about the highs and lows of her recent experience taking and passing all of the architecture registration examinations and Maria shares insights into her study process and exam strategy.
- Maria discusses her transition from architecture to marketing and the skills she developed along the way, emphasizing the value of exploring different career avenues within the field.
- Emily reflects on the challenges of teaching first year architecture students and how she encourages them to build creative problem-solving skills within an architectural toolkit.
- We end by reminiscing about the challenges of job hunting during the pandemic. Both guests share their experiences transitioning into the job market during uncertain times and how it impacted their career paths. 

A bit more about our guests:
Emily Khalid, AIA, NCARB is a Philadelphia-based architect, project manager, and educator with 9+ years of experience working with buildings that are old, new, and everything in between. She currently is a Lead Architect and Project Manager at WSP, where she specializes in transportation and civic architecture across the public and private sectors. She is co-host of the Open Plan Podcast, where she is passionate about creating accessible education, licensure, and career content for architecture professionals. She was selected for the Emerging Leaders in Transportation 2023-2024 cohort, is a mentor for the Women in Transportation Student Chapter, and has taught as an Adjunct Professor at Temple University, Tyler School of Art and Architecture.

Maria Pastorelli is an architectural designer who received both her B.S. in Architecture and Master of Architecture from the Georgia Institute of Technology. Originally from Brazil, she moved to Atlanta in 2014 to pursue her studies. Since then, she has been consistently involved in school leadership positions as a member of the Advisory Board and a Teaching Assistant.
Aside from her coursework, Maria was the Marketing Chair of student-led organization Equity in Architecture, while also completing internships in Atlanta. Her early experience has been in healthcare and community-driven initiatives. She graduated with her Masters in 2020 and has been working on various multi-family, educational, and commercial projects. Additionally, Maria has gained valuable experience in Marketing and currently consults with small architecture practices.

Links:
Open Plan Podcast
Connect with Maria on LinkedIn
Connect with Emily on LinkedIn
Open Plan Podcast on Spotify

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Music by ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠AlexGrohl⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ from ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Pixabay⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

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