10PM: Student has lived in truck for 2 years while attending college

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SALT LAKE CITY — It's an amazing feeling when you realize what you're doing is what you were meant to do.

“Architecture to me is the perfect marriage of design and technical aspects,” said Robert Howell, a senior at the University of Utah.

He tried engineering and business classes, but he didn’t fall in love with them the way he did with architecture.

"Architecture kind of fell out of the woodwork and I was surprised I hadn't discovered it earlier,” Howell said. “But I'm glad I found it. Better late than never."

He can't count the number of projects he has worked on, but he'd have a better shot at figuring that number out, than trying to count the number of hours he has spent in the architecture lab.

“I basically lived here. It’s like my primary home,” Howell said. "To me, it never made sense to have a place I was never at just to sleep, and the back of my truck was just what I needed."

That's right, his truck.

"That's my bedroom, that's my living room, that's everything to me,” Howell said with a laugh pointing to the bed of his white Toyota Tacoma pickup truck.

He knew tuition was expensive, so he saved money by not getting an apartment and sleeping in his truck.

"If you add it up, it's got to be a few thousand dollars. That's no small amount of change,” he said.

It's no small amount of time, either.

Howell has been sleeping in his truck for the past two years.

"It's made me realize how much you actually don't need, you know? I just have a five-minute walk to school, so I can wake up just before my classes and then head to class,” Howell said.

He went home to his parents’ house in Logan on the weekends, but for the most part, his truck was home.

"I had it down to a science. I had a shower up in the gym and usually free food on campus if you keep your ear to the ground," he said.

When it got cold in the winter, he just slept deeper in his sleeping bags. If it got too cold, he slept in the lab.

“We had 24-hour access with a key card. Others were there, too,” Howell said. “All-nighters were not uncommon.”

And dating?

"Let's just say it takes a special type of girl to understand this type of situation,” Howell said with a grin.

It's also a situation that will make graduation this Friday more special.

"It'll be a great story to tell my kids someday. When they come complaining for money, I'll say ‘I slept in the back of my truck for two years!'"

He’s planning on going to grad school in Vancouver, Canada, the next school year.

Howell said he plans on getting an apartment there.

But, he’ll have his truck. Just in case.

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