Student Spotlight: PJ Maneval
Image Courtesy of PJ Maneval
By MaggieMae Dethlefsen
Have you ever wondered what happens in Crough? The Tower sat down with an architecture major concentrating in classical design and a minor in studio art, PJ Maneval, to find out. While she may not have always thought this was the career she was going to pursue, her love of art and buildings guided her to her passion.
“I never really knew what I wanted to do in life… I was never a doctor, astronaut, or president kind of kid,” she said. Maneval has experienced working an internship at Los Alamos National Labs, a program at Princeton, where she did a wide range of computer science-related topics, at Villanova, she helped design a program to track the dietary habits and needs of astronauts, to optimize their health in orbit, at Johns Hopkins and NASA on a Mars rover development project, everything from design to financial negotiations, and forensics at Walter Reed National Medical Research Center with the DOD, and she worked with MIT. While she enjoyed all of these opportunities, she didn’t feel they were her true “path,” and during her junior year of high school, she really wanted to narrow it down because she didn’t want to come into college undecided.
Image Courtesy of PJ Maneval
It all came together one afternoon while lying in bed, and she was scrolling “through her camera roll and realized there was a common theme… buildings, so many pictures of buildings. I had just gotten back from a trip to Europe with my high school, and truly, it was flooded (I still used those photos as precedents to this day),” she said.” So I started researching. It all came together; it was perfect. It is the only art form you can enter and control all the variables of experience. It tied in my art interests perfectly, mesmerized by the beautiful renderings I found online. The more I reflected, the more I realized. I have always been very concerned about the environment; we take so much from the beauty of our shared world. Whatever we do, we should be putting something just as beautiful and useful back into our shared environment. Speaking of nature’s beauty, classical architecture is derived from nature itself. It is the foundation. Connecting to our roots, if you will. And that is really how it all came together.”
With this love of art, buildings, and the environment, architecture became her found path.
Once she found her calling to architecture, she found her way to The Catholic University of America. Having attended Our Lady of Good Counsel High School in Olney, Maryland, and with her graduation being at the Basilica near CUA’s campus, she felt drawn to the university’s strong classical architecture program. “It felt very poetic, closing one chapter and opening the next,” Maneval told The Tower.
During her time here, she has experienced everything from all-nighters in Crough to movie nights and Minecraft sessions that allowed her to “meet so many great people and really learn who I am.” Through all of this, though, her favorite experience at CUA has been studying abroad in Greece. Being able to see the buildings she had studied in textbooks was transformative for her. “It was almost an out-of-body experience, and going to Corinth—the place Corinthian columns are literally named after—was insane.”
In her academic career, Maneval points to Rodrigo Ballot Montenegro and Nathaniel Walker as professors who have been especially influential.
Image Courtesy of PJ Maneval
“They have this vibrancy about them that is contagious,” she said. “You don’t want to disappoint them because of how much they care about you and your education.” These professors have guided Maneval through classes ranging from architectural theory to studio, helping her develop and delve deeper into not only her technical skills but also her understanding of design. Maneval talked about how the studio, in particular, stood out to her during her time at CUA because “it is where everything comes together,” she said. “It’s a privilege to have professors who genuinely want to see you succeed.”
The Tower asked Maneval what her advice for freshmen would be as she looks back at her time so far here at CUA. Maneval said, “It’s okay to be overwhelmed. It’s okay to be hurt. What matters is what you do with that.” She expanded, saying, “Trust your gut […] it has led me to where I needed to be.” She added that time management is important and working ahead really does help.
When asked about her nomination for a student profile, she was humble and grateful, saying, “I like to believe that I work really hard, and to have someone recognize that is really special.”
Outside of Crough, you can find Maneval attending Peers events, taking photos for The Tower, and mentoring with the American Institute of Architecture Students. She also enjoys archery, hiking, gaming, and pottery.
