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Future architects? High School students gain unique, valuable opportunity to explore through Summer College

Each summer, the four-week Summer College Architecture Program at Syracuse University provides rising high school seniors with an opportunity to actively participate in the study of architecture and gain understanding and appreciation for the possibilities of study within this professional field.

It’s one of the University’s most popular summer programs for high school students. Immersion in the life of an architecture student and actively engaging in a full range of discovery experiences is intended to help these students as they consider pursuing future study in a professional architecture program or in a related design field after they graduate from high school. In addition, they get a valuable head start on producing the beginnings of an architecture program application portfolio.

This summer, 34 students enrolled, representing five countries and 11 states.  Syracuse Architecture faculty and award-winning designers Greg Corso and Molly Hunker taught the course. Their main focus was to provide students with studio activities to develop spatial and formal design skills through physical modeling and some introductory digital modeling and digital drawing. Students produced three studio projects during the program. Additionally, the course immersed students in other experiences typical of those offered full-time Syracuse Architecture students:

  • a lecture series that included talks by Syracuse Architecture faculty Corso and Hunker, Sekou Cooke, Bess Krietemeyer, Maya Alam, and Daniele Profeta
  • field trips to the City of Syracuse, Storm King Art Center (sculpture park in Mountainville, New York), Dia: Beacon (museum of the Dia Art Foundation in Beacon, New York), and Cornell University
  • discussions—including a panel with recent Syracuse Architecture graduates
  • design critiques

The program concluded on July 28 with a student work exhibition, attended by the Syracuse Architecture community, students, and parents.

“It was great to have such a large group of students this summer because they were able to build a strong studio culture reflective of architecture school,” said Corso and Hunker. “The students were remarkably talented for high school level students. It was a pleasure for us to work with them for a short, but intense, period of time. We hope to see some of them back here at Syracuse as freshmen a year from now!”

(by Elaine Wackerow)