Advise for new graduates

Here’s a query for anybody with a bit of experience working as an architect who can still remember what it was like to finish your college education with a serious lack of practical knowledge beneath your belt. I’ve been trained in UCD and the Oslo School of Architecture and am hoping to start my first job as a graduate this summer in Dublin. What I need to know is how best to learn the basics of “how to be an architect.”

I have very little experience of working as an architect in Ireland having spent my year out working in Paris.
I have however experienced working in a variety of different sized practices, ranging from 3 people to 30 people and am tempted to limit my applications to the bigger firms in Dublin since I found the atmosphere of a larger office to be infinitely more enjoyable than the stressed out small scale office I had been in previously. My main apprehension in starting work as a junior architect is that I would be chained to a computer and quickly forget all my ambitions as my days become one long, zoom-in, zoom-out CADish nightmare.

I would greatly appreciate any responses from people who could advise on the fastest way to achieve architectural maturity (i.e. be able to manage a project) without losing the enthusiasm for design that I bring with me on finishing my final year.

Thanks,

Seán