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Image courtesy of the research authors, Harvard GSD MArch candidates Hafsa Abdi ‘25, Connor Gravelle ’25, Gillian Hause ’26, and Zamen Lin ’26
This semester, a group of students at the Harvard Graduate School of Design is taking a survey of U.S. architecture graduate visa holders in the workplace for a research project that’s part of their coursework for assistant professor Jacob Reidel’s “Frameworks of Practice” seminar.
They are inviting participants to answer a series of anonymous questions related to their experience as workplace visa holders. The aim, they say, is to produce a snapshot of how immigration status affects both entry-level career choices for architecture graduates and long-term career planning.
The students share: “The original idea came from conversations with peers about how, in the field of architecture, visa status makes workers feel like they are in a precarious position and our preliminary qualitative interviews have supported this. We hope that this research can draw attention to the situation and offer both workers and employers new statistics to work towards compassionate decision-making in offices around the country.”
Answers can be submitted online via this form. The survey is meant to be followed by an analysis of their findings next month. You can check back on Archinect for the results in late December.