architecture students in a room

January 31st 2015

Put a bunch of happy and excited architecture students in a room and to party is on! First day inside the world of architectural education in Aarhus, Denmark….pretty amazing~

Orientation was pretty straight forward… with the usual intro and what not that i got on my first day, talking to the head masters administrator. The IT guy came and gave a little intro to the IT department… and if you remember me telling you about my adventure trying to find that stupid computer room… Well i asked this same guy, twice, “where the room was” he told me he had no idea… and today, he showed a photo of it and its location … charming man. Anyhow, when we got our little tour of the school i had a pretty good idea where i was… but bare in mind, this school is VERY dispersed. I thought UTS was hard o get your head around… this uni is small but like a maze. The students that took us around were undergrads, and have mostly been with the uni for over a year…and they didn’t know their way around very well either! There are so many undergrad studios, all very chaotic inside with models and drawings everywhere, and they are all hidden inside a maze of old buildings. My studio is on the edge on the more busy side of the uni. There was a lot of warning about students spending 24/7 in the studios… basically camping there – and the importance of participation and asking questions (two things I can say i’m good at:)) So far, I am getting very good vibes about the school and a very positive and refreshing difference to UTS – which is exactly what i was looking for.

We also got an amazing tour of the incredible library (a super democratic library – all very free to do anything borrowing as much as you like…. and ALL ARCHI books) I can’t emphasis the immense joy of having a comfortable library…with an incredible materials library in the basement where you can touch, weight and see a super large range of materials.

After the big tour, I was very exhausted (woke up from a big temperature drop half way through the night – balcony iced up again~ so awesome). I had met up with some of the other UTS students (a total of 8 – all from bachelors) and met two girls from Chile (one of which is actually danish…but born and raised in Chile – also named Maria!) I also met a girl i met yesterday at the registration….the evening was an explosion of meeting people.

I just came back from the dinner/party where everyone got to mingle, drink beer and shout over loud music to have a conversation. In general, everyone was super happy to talk and I have so many stories in my head right now its impossible to write them all down.. but thank goodness for easy names!! I am actually doing pretty well at putting faces to names tonight….. except of this super friendly danish guy with a name i can’t pronounce hahah!!!

Was wanting to hang out with people over the weekend, but most people are still trying to settle and move…and shop… SO! I am planning a weekend of museum visits, cleaning and hanging out in the school library (still don’t have internet at home) !!!

Anyways, I am safe and happy:) and am getting used to being alone~

Lorraine