So I've already been home for break for over a week. It's been really nice to be able to spend time with my family, and couple friends (most aren't home from their schools yet). I've even started my summer job already, so I'll be able to save some for spending money next year. I am already missing school and everyone there though.

I recently got a comment from an accepted student who raised a lot of very good questions that I'm sure are shared by the majority of accepted students, so I thought I'd share them and my answers here.

*"Have you really had to do the famous all nighters for your arch classes?"
I personally have never had to pull an all-nighter, but I'm really disciplined with pacing myself and my workload. I'll sacrifice a lot of my time consistently to successfully finish my projects. I would stay in the studio for manual til 3:00 or 3:30 in the morning some nights (on the weekends too!) cause I had so much to do and it was impossible for me to do a good job and finish it in a night. But, it really is dependent on how long you procrastinate and how quickly you work. The majority of students have been forced to stay up all night to finish some sort of project though, especially before final crits on the final projects.

*"Do you feel like you have really good quality professors?"
Most of them were really really good, and I really enjoyed their classes. My manual representation professor was great looking back, and it's nice in the studios cause you get to spend so a lot of one-on-one time with them that you really build rapport and get really comfortable (you're even on a strictly first-name basis, that's how they introduce and refer to themselves). It makes for a very collaborative environment where you really get a lot out of the courses.
Outside of architecture, I've been talking environmental classes, and I've been impressed with the caliber of the professors. They all have been really active in important research and social movements.

*"I know the arch major is pretty structured - do you have room for electives or a minor?"
Yes, you definitely will have room for electives and a minor, but pick your courses carefully in advance. I'm glad I decided early about my minor cause I've been able to work with my schedule to fit everything I need in. Keep in mind too, the university as a whole has gen. ed. requirements so they have to allow some time in your schedule to fit in those, but if you have a lot of those credits already with transfer credits (from AP or whatever else), then you can pick whichever classes you need for a minor or just what you want to take. You can also pick gen. ed. requirement classes that also fulfill credits towards your minor.

*"I'll be coming in with 30 transfer credits ... did you have/do you know anyone who's had experience with transferring credits? Hard? Easy?"
I actually came in which about 24 transfer credits from AP tests and a college level course I took my senior year. It really wasn't bad, I don't even remember if I had to do anything or if it was done for me. So I guess it couldn't have been too grueling.

*"I'm really interested in sustainability and environmental design.. and I think I read on one of your blog entries that you are too! Is there a class focusing on that? Do you get to sort of do specialized projects to fit your interests?"
As a freshman I haven't really had the opportunity to work on very specialized projects yet, cause I'm still developing my skill sets and learning about the field more generally. But it seems like later, as you progress, you can take more liberty to develop projects in a way that interests you. For now though, we are more focused on general design issues, schemes, and reasoning. I have been learning soo much though in my environmental classes, and have found the links to architecture really common and prominent. As I get farther it seems I will have the opportunities to really take project in directions that I want to go.

*"Could you tell me a little bit about the benefits [of the honors program] and what you really like about it? Also, are there things you don't like about the program?"
Well, housing is the first thing that comes to mind. In the honors programs one of the biggest perks is that honors student get much nicer housing, especially as freshman (also dependent on how much you want to spend). There are also a lot of opportunities in the honors programs to do extra projects, service activities, or cultural activities. This year I have gotten a lot of tickets to a wide range of events through the honors program as a greatly reduced rate.

*"Do kids go into the city a lot, or mostly stay on campus?"
We definitely go into the city all the time. The thing about NU that I love, more than with other city schools, is that we have a very welcoming, comforting campus that we can stay on if we want to escape from the commotion of the city. But we are in such a central location, that really is beautiful...we are walking distance to so many places and just a T ride away from soo many more. You start to realize how small the city is by the end of the year....in the beginning I was so overwhelmed by it all. But our last week here, a couple girlfriends and I went out to dinner in the North End (the Italian part) and bumped into four different groups of friends on the same street corner, definitely a lot smaller than you think at first. But I really love it, cause the cultural and social aspects of the city is really diverse and active. It's nice to just go take a walk and explore a new area, cause there are so many beautiful areas.

*"Being in honors, and doing architecture, do you have time for clubs and just hanging out with friends?"
Time is definitely my biggest hinderance. I'm not involved in nearly as many things as I'd like to be because I devote so much time to my studio work. Some relaxed, stress-free activity is necessary, its just that any free time I do have is usually after 10 or 11 pm, and obviously student groups don't meet that late. Next year I'm definitely going to try to become more involved with at least a couple activities. Also though, I do have work study for 10 hours a week, so if I didn't have that I'd probably have much more time during the day for clubs and stuff.

Hope seeing this can give some student insight to accepted students, or even students thinking about applying in the future. Feel free to ask any other questions, I really enjoy answering them cause I know how the anticipation and uncertainty feels when considering schools...I went through it all just last year.

Posted by Jessica Wilcock at 1:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

It's hard to believe that in three days I will be done with my freshman year. There's been so much going on in the past few weeks of the semesters. I've really had to buckle down the past few days on my digital representation project for my presentation on Wednesday. I've probably racked up over fifty or sixty hours on it this week alone, which has been really difficult with the nice weathering luring everybody outside.

Last week I got a little reprieve though; my friends and I went to a Tristan Prettyman concert at the Paradise Rock Club, which is right near BU's campus. So not only did I get to enjoy a great show, but I got to see a little of BU's campus. I hadn't really seen much of their campus before, but I found that it is much different than the Northeastern campus--much more spread out. Seeing this made me appreciate the fact that we have a very centralized campus even more. (I personally didn't like the idea of taking the T to class or having the university spread throughout the city buildings.)

Tomorrow also is the University's Sustainability Forum, which will talk about NU's carbon footprint, sustainable development measures, and future plans for improvement. To me, it is really exciting to see more and more universities around the country making strides to a more environmentally-friendly approach within their infrastructure. After learning so much in my environmental studies classes about how many problems the world's facing in terms of global climate change and how drastic improvements can be made by taking what seem to be such minor steps, it is really encouraging to see such an event taking place.

Posted by Jessica Wilcock at 9:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

As the semester is already drawing to a close, there has been a lot of activities going on around campus in addition to the building of final coursework. On Monday, I attended the 5th Annual Honors evening with many of my fellow honors students. It was very interesting to see all the Junior and Senior projects that NU students have completed. I was impressed with the caliber of research that was presented throughout. The ceremony and dinner was a great time as well. I found Professor Setta's address to be a very intriguing spin on applying traditional religious values from various cultures to modern society.

With the warmer weather coming too, its been nice to get out into the city and explore a little more. Being in my first year, I am still getting to know the city, and it's exciting to visit many new areas.

I've been busy with my studio work for digital representation. I've been developing my concept for a cafe in the Christian Science Center Plaza. We've gone on site visits to see other outdoor seasonal cafes that exist throughout the city. We were able to go to Boston Seaport to explore some beautiful cafes that opened right onto the river. It was inspiring to see how they handled siting within such an urban setting to essentially create a landscape that enforced a sense of "nature."

Posted by Jessica Wilcock at 2:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)