Minal Panchal loved architecture, but she had plenty of other favorites as well. She liked to sit in the lab in Cowgill Hall, doing work and singing along to the music coming from her headphones, usually Pink Floyd, said her friend Annu Anand, a fellow architecture grad student.
Panchal was also known for loving mint chocolate chip ice cream, Harry Potter, the sport of cricket and talking with friends.
"She was one of those people who you felt comfortable with as soon as you met her," Anand said. "I'm shy and the first day I met her, we started talking and then we were friends."
Anand said Panchal spent a lot of time devoted to her future as an architect, but was also the one who would encourage her fellow classmates to go out as a group and socialize.
"She would always say that we need to hang out as a batch," he said.
Harshil Shah, a grad student in computer science said he met Panchal at Tech through the international program because they both came from India. He said his first impression of her said it all.
"At times she was talkative, but more than anything, she was just a jolly kind of person," he said. "She was good at heart and used to just greet people and talk to anyone."
Ahmed Khalil, another of Panchal's friends and fellow architecture grad students said she was friendly, but was also extremely good at what she loved the most: architecture.
"When she was flipping through her portfolio, she would put any of us to shame," he said. "I was afraid of her seeing my drawings because she'd pick them apart."
Her classmates said her aspirations of architecture seemed to come from wanting to follow in her father's footsteps. Panchal's father who died about four years ago, was an architect in India, but mostly did residential work, whereas Panchal was more interested in large construction projects, Khalil said.
"Whatever he did though, obviously influenced her," he said.
Like Anand, Khalil expressed how impressed he was with Panchal's sense of wanting fellowship within the architecture department and lab.
"She is shy and humble, but has a ferocious sense of talent. That is a quality everyone wishes they had," he said. "It's an adverse environment and people tend to be competitive, but she was always pleasant."
Anand also said she was a great friend and was good at giving advice.
"I don't give honest advice. I just say something because I want them to stop asking. She was the exact opposite. She would give the best advice she could and listen patiently. I always respected that," he said.
After college, Panchal planned on going into the field of structures and was on her way to a master's degree in building sciences. She was very interested in the construction aspect of buildings and Anand said she was extremely ambitious about opening her own architecture practice in the U.S.
"We used to joke with each other about when we opened our own offices. We wanted to do different things in architecture so we agreed that one day, we would pass business back and forth to each other," he said.
The architecture department at Tech has added a page to their website remembering Panchal, and Facebook and other online sites have memorial groups in her name.
"In the studio environment, everyone is like a family so when we lose a fellow architect, its more like losing a sister," Khalil said.
