University of Virginia

On Monday I woke up early and got on the road around 6:30 for the 2.5 hour drive to the University of Virginia. I found out the School of Architecture, where UVA's Urban & Environmental Planning program is housed, was having an open house and I couldn't pass on the opportunity to attend. Once I got out of the city, the drive was beautiful with along the rolling hills on the edge of the Blue Ridge Mountains. The leaves of the trees were in differing shades of color change and looked magnificent in the rising sunshine.

In the time I had to wander around before check-in I got to take in the beautiful campus. It is gorgeous!! Now let's remember, I hadn't been out of the city in almost a month so any sort of nature was bound to knock my socks off. And obviously rolling hills + changing leaves will look good on any post card. But with a closer look I was again not disappointed, all of the red brick buildings are beautiful though none pristine. They are used, they are real. After spending four years on a limestone-covered campus in southern Indiana it only seems appropriate that grad. school might be spent with the sharp red brick. Coming here also made me realize how much I miss IU and how much I really love the campus/environment of a large state school.

So I love campus, but I also love the school! While most Urban Planning programs grant an MUP (Masters of Urban Planning), UVA grants a MUEP (Masters of Urban & Environmental Planning) as creating a sustainable future has been important there long before being green became cool. This is important because one of the largest problems with Detroit and other rust-belt-type cities is that sustainable planning wasn't even thought about. In Detroit, there were cars, so they built roads, and cars went faster, so they build expressways...but no one thought about what would happen in the long run. The professors and students through out the day made sure to point out that while environmentalism may include solar panels and windmills, in this context it equally refers to creating a built environment people will enjoy and want to live & work within.

In short, love the program, love the school, LOVE UVA!