Hey!
So last week was our NeoCon field trip! The whole Junior Interior Design class took a field trip down to Baltimore to go to NeoCon and along the way we stopped in Washington D.C and Georgetown to visit some interior design firms! It was a good experience. Georgetown is so cute! All the brick apartment buildings along the water and the cute little shopping areas! I loved it! Plus coming from Syracuse it was so refreshing and such a treat to experience some 70 degree weather! We visited the firm HOK's office and it was pretty exciting since firms are starting to talk to us like we might actually work there some day! It's kind of weird yet cool to think that the firms I'm looking at now may actually be places of future employment. HOK is a pretty big firm and they have offices all over the world. They only do large commercial buildings and they look for versatile employees that have unique and daring ideas. Even though their size and success seem intimidating when we went to the office they all seemed pretty down to earth and nice people. I definitely liked the office and the company values even though I still don't know exactly what avenue of interior design I want to pursue.
NeoCon was pretty cool too! It was in the Baltimore Convention Center so the night before we all got to walk around the inner harbor area which is really pretty with some cute shopping areas. At NeoCon we saw a presentation by the founders of Hellman Chang who were both pretty funny and also really down to earth. We also met with a ton of manufacturers who showed us so many new and innovative products, many of them sustainable. My personal favorite was the ergoErgo chair, which I definitely recommend looking up for any health-minded people out there. It is like a stool almost, but more comfortable, and looks like a plastic spring. It gives you the same type of work out as sitting on an exercise ball, however, it doesn't roll around or tip over like an exercise ball does. I tried one out and they're actually really fun! They just constantly kind of sway back and forth and work out all your core muscles as you sit! The sales representative said they should come out around January... and I'm seriously considering investing in one! Other than meeting with sales reps there were some career advising sessions where professionals would speak to you about the interview process and look over your resumes and portfolios. It was a good experience over all and pretty beneficial. Well I hope you all are doing well! Until next time!
Leeanna

Hey again
So exciting news! Tomorrow we're headed to NeoCon!! yay!! If you don't know what NeoCon is I'll explain it to you a little bit so you can partake in my excitement. NeoCon is one of the biggest trade shows in the interior design field. All kinds of manufacturing companies will attend along with professional designers. It happens every year and this year it is located in Baltimore! It will be a great opportunity to see what's out there as far as products and get some samples of things to use in my projects. We also put together our portfolios and resumes to hand out to professionals in hopes of maybe getting some summer internships. Either way it will be a great networking and research opportunity and I am very excited. I have my new business casual outfit picked out and everything. On our trip we're also going to go to DC and tour some interior design studios which will also be fun and informative. We get to stay over in Baltimore too so that will be fun of course. Other than that I've just been working steadily on our projects! I've been trying to get everything done early since I'm leaving tomorrow and then its Halloween weekend! yay!! well I hope everything is going well for all of you! Until next time!
Leeanna

Hello! So exciting news! My friend Lauren and I are starting the ASID student chapter of Syracuse University! ASID stands for American Society of Interior Designers and it is a national organization that includes both professionals and students. It offers a lot of benefits for joining as well. You can receive discounts on all the major interior design and architecture magazines as well as text books. There are also a lot of events hosted by ASID as well and through the website you can network with professionals which can help with job opportunities and internships. So far for our chapter we've found a faculty adviser and have started working on becoming part of SGA which is the University organization that sponsors clubs. We've also made some brochures to advertise and attract members so we can start putting on events and hosting speakers. I think this club will be a great way to get professionals to be a bigger part of the university. We plan on hosting guest speakers and events to get manufacturers and professionals to come speak to students. These events would be open to all interior designers and could even expand to include the entire design department once we get started. I think this club is so exciting and a great opportunity. I can't wait till it gets off the ground.

So I finally passed my Study abroad application in!!!! Yay!!!! I'll hear back in a couple of weeks whether we got in the program or not and I'm so excited! I really hope I get it, going abroad to London would be an incredible experience. Actually I had a really good experience with the design department yesterday that I thought you all might want to hear about. So, I was trying to finish my portfolio last minute, irresponsible I know, and I couldn't figure out why it wasn't exporting from indesign to a pdf file! I had never used indesign before, which might have been part of the problem, but even still I was really starting to worry that I wouldn't get it finished in the proper format. I had scheduled a meeting with the Chair of the Design department earlier that week to go over my portfolio to make sure that I had everything correct before I submitted it, unfortunately I had to go to the meeting without it being finished. Well, even though she had warned me ahead of time that she couldn't meet for a long time, during the meeting she spent twenty minutes trying to help me figure out my portfolio format. Then, after that was unsuccessful, she tracked down the computer professor and went with me to help me fix it! Through the whole process, not only did I get my portfolio finished, I also learned a lot more about indesign. I was so thankful that she took the time to really help me. In a school as big as Syracuse it really is unique that the chairperson of the entire design department would spend so much time out of her busy day to help a student with a simple computer issue. It really was impressive. In fact after the meeting she followed up with me to ask if I thought a computer seminar would be beneficial to not only me but my entire class. This was a great experience working with the design administration and really is such a benefit to coming to VPA, students on average feel like they get a significant amount of individualized attention. Well I hope you are all doing well! Talk to you next week!

Hello again everyone! I hope things are going well for you all. Classes are seeming to be a little more challenging this year than previous years. I'm taking 6 classes this year for starters unlike the past two years where I took 5 and that alone has made a big difference in my schedule. This year I have classes from 9:30 in the morning till 9:45 at night Monday and Wednesday. Those are long days! However, that means I only have two short classes on Thursday and no classes on Friday. I'm also able to fit work study into my Tuesday class schedule so after Wednesday night everything clears up for a nice weekend! I know a lot of people who schedule their weeks like this. This way they have a four day weekend every week. I can see why people like it, but it is definitely hectic for those three days and not really my style. At least its a good lesson to learn for the next time I make my schedule. The classes themselves are also pretty different. For one I'm taking into to Emerging Enterprises and Entrepreneurship. I've never taken a business class at college so I was a little nervous since math is definitely not one of my strengths, but it turned out I really like this class! The teacher is actually an incredibly successful business man who's only been teaching for 2 semesters now so he's right out of the field and really up to date with today's economic structure. It's also not as math focused and tedious as I pictured a business class to be. Instead we have a lot of lectures and discussions on the techniques behind starting a business and how things work out to be successful. I'm finding it to be pretty interesting stuff and definitely useful to my major since interior design is all about selling your ideas. Plus I hope to own my own firm someday so this minor will come in handy. I have that class later today actually. Thats the only thing I would change about it, it starts at 7 and goes to 9:30. Kind of late, but at least its only one day a week! Well until next time! Have a good week!

Hello again everybody! So its only been a week and we're well on our way to completing our first projects of the semester. This year, unlike the previous one, I have a lot more academic work to do since I'm taking Emerging Enterprises and Entrepreneurship as well as Human Sexuality. Both classes are pretty interesting but EEE looks like its going to be a lot of rigorous work. Along with that, our interior design classes are picking up too! This year is all about office and commercial spaces, which I'm finding I enjoy more than the residential work we did last year. While residential design deals more with materials and the psychological effects of design and space as far as comfort and emotions go, it's starting to seem like office and commercial design has a lot more to do with problem solving. Of course, we still put a lot of emphasis on smart design, using sustainable products and materials, as well as making the space aesthetically pleasing. However, we also have to solve a lot of user problems. For example our first project was to redesign our professor's small office for his architectural firm located here in Syracuse. We had to go and look at the site and you could tell the office had a lot of serious problems as far as adequate space and storage. There were many specifications for what needed to be included in the new design and there were some obvious architectural elements we had to work around, however, besides that we were free to explore different options. In fact, at the end of the project one of our designs may be implemented in the new office! This kind of interior design interests me a lot more since it involves more problem solving instead of simply making a space look interesting. It's like a giant puzzle! So that's what we have been up to in our classes. I hope schools going well for all of you! Until next time! Leeanna

Hello again everybody!
It feels like I just left yesterday! Summer went by so quickly! There have been a lot of changes to SU since I've been gone though. A major one for me has been the move to the Warehouse! I visited the Warehouse for the first time the other day and it is a very interesting place. The building has this cool modern, industrial atmosphere to it and I love how all of the design majors are in one place. It's like the whole building is one big design project. The brand new desks and shop equipment are a plus too, not to mention the building has taken a big leap in its furniture choices using a lot of modern and bold designs. For example most of the chairs on the fourth floor are of Phillipe Stark's brand. So cool. The Warehouse is also only one block away from Armory Square, an area of local restaurants and small boutiques, which is also convenient and only adds to the artistic atmosphere. So even though it's a change, I'm pleased and I think the Warehouse can only improve from here.

Other than that I'm living off campus this year which is also different! I'm only two blocks away from campus which is great because it's not only a short walk to classes but it's not that far from Marshall St. either. Moving into my own place was some what of an awkward transition since I had to figure out things like cable and Internet, which have always been provided and I never had to think about. Not only that but now I go to a landlord with issues instead of calling the school's housing department. It's different but it also gives me a sense of independence and I love the look of the small apartments around here. Most of them are big old houses turned into split levels so they're all really unique and different. Some people actually rent an entire house and then live with 8 or 10 people; I wasn't that adventurous, but still four roommates is enough for me.

Other than that Syracuse is its usual beautiful self! They've added a new dorm, Ernie Davis, but other than that construction's at a minimum and everything seems to be in full swing around here. I hope every one's summer went well and you are all enjoying your first couple days back! Until next time!~