WAAC Off-Campus Program
Contact Information
Faculty Coordinators
Meredith Sattler, sattler@calpoly.edu
Staff Coordinator
Arlene Gomez, agomez25@calpoly.edu, 001 (805) 756-1316
Webpage: http://www.waac.vt.edu/
Ten reasons to attend WAAC
- The program is extremely international both in the student body and faculty makeup. Students who attend he Washington Alexandria Architectural Center (WAAC) program form lifelong personal friendships with other international students. Living, working, and studying in close proximity from students from Europe, South America, and (this year for the first time) the middle east (Bahrain University), Calpoly students are immersed in a truly international environment.
- Students get a great education, have a chance to work and after school is out there is a 5 month period for travel or work. Students have often commented that what distinguishes WAAC from the other off-campus programs is through its nurturing of the design studio. Through the direct exposure and interaction with graduate and landscape students, as well as the opportunity to develop a semester long project, many Calpoly students find that their studio work improves immensely. In addition, students who have a particular interest in theory have the rare opportunity at the WAAC to attend graduate level theory courses, often taught in a seminar format of under 20 students.
- The program offers classes in landscape architecture, city and regional planning as well as architecture. All of these classes are open to Cal Poly students.
- Students have the opportunity to work and take classes in a very well equipped wood working shop, metal shop, darkroom, and glass studio. It is like Cal Poly!
- Design projects are student generated and not created by the faculty. An excellent preparation for your fifth year thesis back at Cal Poly.
- Washington is a major urban area with unmatched diverse cultural opportunities, lectures, art openings and is the home of the Smithsonian Institute and National Museums.
- Students receive strong and robust critiques on their projects from international faculty members which means that you will have very different points of views on what it means to design.
- The cost of the program is very similar to going to Cal Poly for a year.
- Chances are that the student will be living in a major urban city after graduation, and this experience is a wonderful step in that direction.
- The program is very supportive, but also allows a high degree of independence and individual expression.
Updated 06.27.16