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!~

Hello again everyone!
Last week of classes!! Yay! We just finished our final project in interior design and I am so excited to be moving into the final stretch of sophomore year! Our last project was a sustainable building project in which we had to research all the building materials that went into the house as well as the interior and exterior design and all the furnishings and colors. It was a lot of work but also a lot of fun to do because we could pick our own client so each individual project was very personalized. I did my roommate, which was so much fun because I know her so well and she was easily accessible. We had to build a model for this project along with all the drawings. I learned that although model building is a pain its more important for understanding the concept of a design than you think. I realized after doing my model that there were a lot of changes that needed to be made to the original design than I anticipated! So that was quite the adventure.

The weather is finally getting nice here too! Its 70 degrees here today!! Mayfest was this week as well and it was decent weather then too. Mayfest is so much fun, the university cancels classes and just has activities for students on the quad all day. There's also block party coming up which is the annual spring concert, this year the artist is Ben Folds! so that will be fun! Basically, I love the end of the year at Syracuse its so rewarding to kick back and enjoy the weather after such a long semester! I hope everything is going well for you! Until next time!
Leeanna

Hey Everyone!
So things are warming up here at Syracuse and everyone's loving it. People are hanging out on the quad and everyone seems more social when it's warm out! Classes are going well! We just finished a big project in Interior Design, the adaptive reuse condo project. My client was Steven Grasse and considering he is such an outrageous and eccentric person it made designing the condo a little difficult. However, it also allowed me to use different and more unusual materials! For example, I used priva-lite glass as the walls in the bathroom. This glass is really cool, its manufactured so that it can go from being completely clear to foggy and opaque with the flip of a switch! Other people in class found some really cool things too. One girl found ceramic tile that is made in a certain way so that the titanium in the product actually reacts with natural sunlight and cleans the air in the same way plants clean the air when they photosynthesise! That's amazing!

Doing these more extensive interior design projects has made me realize how important knowing different materials in the market is to creating a good design. I have definitely spent more time searching the web and reading magazines and advertisements looking for better and new materials.

I've finally figured out my housing for next year as well! I'm living off campus! I'm really excited to finally get my own place! The house is great too, its huge and only two blocks off campus so its really close. Plus we get a balcony! There are four of us girls living upstairs and five guys in the downstairs apartment... so a lot of people in one space will make things very interesting I'm thinking. I can't wait though and most of all I'm glad I have it all settled.

We also found out who is coming to Mayfest this year! Ben Folds and Guster! That's exciting too! I like how they switch up the musical genres every year. Last year they had Fergie and Sean Kingston so this year they definitely picked a different avenue!

Well I hope everyone is doing well with their college search! Till next time!

Hello again everyone,
So its snowing like crazy here in Syracuse! Finally! I was starting to get worried winter was over early this year it had been so warm out lately. Things are going well here though. We only have a few more weeks until spring break and midterms! Yay! We got some new projects in my design classes. One of them is designing a small condo in the Hotel Syracuse, which is a historic hotel in the city of Syracuse. It is really pretty inside with incredible ballrooms and lounges. However, its been out of use for a while now and has started to fall apart on the inside. So now they are restoring the building and turning the old hotel rooms into condos for rent. There doing a lot of other things in the city around that area too. I'm pretty sure the project is called symphony place and they are planning on putting in some out door park like areas, restaurants and entertainment areas kind of to revitalize the downtown area. So our project is to design a condo for a specific client who has some sort of ties to the Syracuse area. It's kind of a complicated project though because you have to design around the existing building requirements and historic atmosphere of the space. But its cool that you can pick your own client and design specifically to them. I picked Steven Grasse, he's pretty radical and graduated from Newhouse for advertising. He's going to be a lot of fun to design for because his ideas are so insane. I'm thinking of going in the swank bachelor pad direction..
So thats what's going on here! I hope everything is going well with all of you!

Hello everyone!
So its been a while since I last wrote on the blog!! Things are going well here at Syracuse! We just finished our first set of projects in interior design! One of them was pretty cool and took a different approach than the usual projects we have. We had to draw out the floor and site plans of our childhood home from memory. We also had to make a list of all the materials and map out the heating and plumbing systems as best we could. It's really interesting to see how when you really analyze something how much you don't actually remember! This project was supposed to be really informal and we couldn't even use rulers! It was really hard to switch to such a messy approach after spending a whole semester being really neat and professional looking! In the end, the focus was more on connecting with an audience and presentation of a plan. It was fun, just really different.

We had more guest speakers this week as well! On Wednesday we had all of our design classes cancelled and had a "Day of Play" in which the university had guest speakers come in to talk about the importance of play in design and exploration. It was really inspiring to hear these really successful business owners and designers come and speak about how play in the workforce is what has set their companies apart from others. They also explored how play is an inherent need for human beings and gave many different examples of how a lack of play can cause many problems for someone psychologically. I enjoyed the lectures a lot because as a psychology minor I thought they approached both fields that I'm interested in; interior design and psychology.

In my materials class we had a representative come from 3form! If you haven't heard of 3form you should definitely look them up! They design different products and materials for interior designing and all of their stuff is really inventive and environmentally friendly! The new products they were showing us had such a forward way of thinking and really stretched the boundaries for what I thought was possible in different materials! We also got free hats.. a little bit of company propaganda but thats okay.

Well I hope your college search is going well! Good luck with everything! I'll have more to come later!