It is 3 a.m. and the room is just starting to get busy.

About a dozen architecture students can be found wandering beneath the glare of the fluorescent lights in Engineering Unit C. The studio is alive with sounds of students working on their project designs, talking about their ideas and shouting memorable quotes from Napoleon Dynamite.

"This is how we keep sane," Travis Crum (senior-architecture) said as he paused to look up from his desk strewn with transparent tracing papers.

Between the hours, the pressure, and never feeling totally satisfied
with projects, most architecture students describe a tough academic existence.

"I didn't sleep in my bed for an entire week," Rachel Oleinick (senior-architecture) said.

Oleinick said she slept eight hours in one week while working on a project. She didn't even get to doze at home -- she slept on the couch in the studio.

Despite the hardships, she sticks with the major.

"If you had any sanity, you wouldn't be an architect," Oleinick said. "But you have this uncontrollable compulsion."

While the studio is full of music, laughter and sarcastic humor, more than one student said that their study of architecture is strained at best.

"It's a love-hate relationship," said Nancy Minnick (senior-architecture and art history). "It's hard to explain. I'm laughing about it [now], but I've called my parents sobbing at 3 a.m."

Minnick's feelings were shared by more than one person.

"The notion of architecture that you come in with is completely different than what it is," Crum said. He added that he's keeping his major because it would be too hard to switch.

Both students said the level of stress and sleep-deprivation required by the major is overwhelming.

"There's an all-nighter and then there's an ALL-NIGHTER," Brian Bowser (senior-architecture) said. "The lowercase one is where you take off at 5 a.m. and sleep before class. The capitalized one is where you stay up and you go from class to class."

Students said they typically go days with little to no sleep when a project is due and sometimes do not see their apartment or dorm for a week.

"If you're not in class, you're here," Grace Heicher (senior-architecture) said with a slightly pained smile and a glance at Oleinick, her roommate, who nodded her head in agreement. "We used to call our dorm the 'showering place.' "

However, some students say their passion for architecture still lingers.

"Architecture influences people's lives in so many ways," Heicher said.

For Heicher, she said she sees her involvement in architecture as a way to help people and communities. Architecture 432 (Design-Research IV, or Urban Planning Studies and Design Systems) helped open her eyes.

"It's really a system that's outside the university experience. And from my perspective it's always been an uncomfortable fit," said Bret Peters, an associate professor of architecture, referring to the way architecture students are trained.

Peters said the system was developed during the reign of Louis XIV and has changed little since that time, as it requires long hours of hard work.

Aside from joking around, students relieve the stress in other ways. Friendships are important, too.

"I think we're just a family with all the good and bad that comes with it," Kristen Zeiber (senior-architecture) said and then returned to her desk to pore over the project due today.

After all, the night is young.