Externships in Retrospect: Xindi Lyu

The Weitzman externship program offers students in architecture, city planning, historic preservation, and landscape architecture the opportunity to take their learnings outside of the classroom and gain first-hand knowledge of practice. Externships typically last from one to two weeks and run during winter and spring breaks. Xindi Lyu is a Master of City Planning student who expects to graduate in May; her externship was with the Kansas City office of Confluence.

What was your goal in joining the externship program? 

What I was trying to get out of the externship experience was to see how different design practices engage with urban design and planning. Coming from a more design-oriented background, I found it helpful to experience first-hand how each firm interprets design challenges at different scales, and generate solutions based on their understanding of the existing context and stakeholder priorities.

Another important objective I had was to see their workflows, both in terms of the tools they use to create the projects, and in terms of how teams collaborate across disciplines to achieve the work.

What aspect of the experience did you like best? 

Everyone at was very open and welcoming with me throughout the week. They gave me thorough presentations on their on-going projects, introduced their digital studio where they develop and explore in-house tools and plugins to support their workflows.

How did the externship clarify your career goals?

It was incredibly helpful in many ways. Being immersed in the design process gave me a clearer understanding of the kind of day-to-day work I am most drawn to. I particularly value how they engage in thoughtful conversations with communities and ground their design decisions in community input, which reflects the kind of practice I hope to pursue in my career moving forward.