ARCH 2070

Professor Cleckley is very fun and welcoming. However, there is little room for creativity in this course as you are supposed to follow strict guidelines for each project. The one time I tried to go above and beyond I did not get rewarded, but rather criticized. The TAs will vary for this course, but I found the grading and the critiques to be harsher than expected. There are times in class where it is unclear what everyone is supposed to be doing. I would have liked class time to have been more relevant (such as professor Cleckley giving Adobe demonstrations). That being said, it was not, by any means, a horrible course. If you are interested in design and you have the time to devote to improving your Adobe skills (if you don't already have them), take this course.

I am not in the architecture school, so this class was really different for me. All of your assignments are digital creative design projects with multiple submissions, and you are given a lot of freedom for how to create them. Elgin is one of the most incredible professors I've had at UVA: super smart, entertaining in lecture, and makes an effort to connect with his students as well. The grading on homeworks/projects is mainly on improvement from your first to last submission, so my best advice would be to go to office hours after your first submission so you can take his/TA's suggestions on how to improve for your next ones (this will improve your score a ton). Having no illustrator experience was honestly what I struggled with most because the projects would take me hours to do. But, if you go to office hours for this/watch tutorial videos you should be fine, and even if you don't you learn a lot just from doing so many projects on it. Design thinking is a super useful skill to know in all fields! Would definitely recommend this class.

Elgin is a super amazing professor who always encourages your creative work and loves to engage with students. I promise by the time the semester s done you will love him! This class does require quite a bit of work outside class working on design projects, as well as some discussion posts, but the readings are usually useful and short. I would recommend this class for people with or without previous experience because it starts out basic and builds off each skill you learn.

This class was a really cool class for those interested in design and marketing but for me, it ended up being a lot more work than it was worth. Every assignment was so open ended and required so many drafts prior to the final, which required spending money on printing in the A-School. I was expecting a very different class setup. That being said, Prof. Cleckley was very funny and I did enjoy him.