ARCH 1010

Totally pointless. You need to have a good TA otherwise you will hate this course. Waldman tends to ramble, is very difficult to follow, and the weekly assignments are a joke. Don't take it if you don't have to.

Great class. Take it. If you don't like it, you should drop out of A-School, because the theories learned in the class come back up constantly as you move up in the school. Waldman may seem crazy but he is crazy brilliant. If you want your grade to improve really go to office hours and your TAs will basically tell you specifically what you need to do to improve and though the high school writer in you may resist just do what they tell you. DO THE READINGS. The majority of them are great, so great that I have reread a lot of them.

So, Waldman is 10000000% full of it, and this class is artsy balogna. Get good TAs, because they will determine your overall succcess. The class is ridiculously subjective and you really need to just fake it to get by. Lectures are near impossible to sit/stay awake through. Anyone who tells you otherwise is either lying, delusional, or abysmally pretentious.

The sad thing is, at its core the buildings and concepts are fascinating. I wish Waldman had actually engaged with the class for their perspectives because his voice and opinions just drone on and on. I have learned to see buildings in new light, but it’s been entirely as a result of me reading Wikipedia articles and not wasting my time with the lectures and ridiculously stuffy and pretentious readings. This class is way too dry for me to recommend to anyone who doesn’t already have to take it.

This class tested my ability to bullshit effectively. Perhaps I am not of the architectural mind, but everything in this class teaches architecture and small minute details as significant symbols of like the universe and of seemingly hyperbolic metaphor consistently. I write about windows as the void between universe like this class has taught me that anything can symbolize anything and the more crazy I can make these symbolizations the better at architecture I am. I bought all the books and never really had to read any of them, I also didn't really do any of the readings. Even going to lecture is mostly optional, however I would recommend it for when Peter talks about the case studies that you are about to write about, this is a great source of information. I went to mostly all lectures and paid attention occasionally. I expect probably a B+ maybe A- in the course. This class does teach and help one to be creative but it is so abstract that it is difficult to comprehend. The first few classes will make most everyone feel completely bewildered. in short, if you work hard you can probably do well, office hours and TA's are super important. Depend on your TA's get close with them and pay attention as much as u can and you will get a decent enough grade.

I wish Peter could slow down during lecture and take questions as he moves on, because this is such an abstract class and Peter focused more on satisfying his nurturing from the celestial soffit than teaching us clearly about some of the most important architectural theories. The TAs are important because they will determine your grade. There is a paper every two weeks and with a midterm and final in essay forms. Honestly, just don't take it unless you are an architecture student.

Don't take this course if it isn't required for your major (it's only a requirement in the architecture school). I took this as a first semester first year student in the College of Arts & Sciences to fulfill a humanities requirement and it was way too difficult given how much work was required. Every two weeks I was required to write a single-spaced 5-7 page paper that was very difficult conceptually. Peter Waldman is extremely intelligent and his lectures are interesting in the beginning, but they get repetitive after a while.

This course was created to be a humanities course for architecture students. I find the whole class to be arbitrary, no assignments make sense. My best advice when writing the paper would to be just write and don't think much, the more connections you can make to the material presented in lectures and readings the better you will do in the class. Waldman is very friendly and if you're struggling his office hours can be helpful. I would definitely not recommend this class if you don't have to take it.
#tCFfall22

Peter Waldman is a very intelligent and compassionate man, but struggles to accept that he no longer an effective teacher. The essay prompts are the longest run on sentences that are gibberish and writing the responses require more bs than any essay you have written before. I recommend creating continuity in your biweekly essays which begin at 1 page and increase in size until 6 for the final single spaced. Taking your own pictures of sites around UVA and including drawings you have done go a long way as well. Include the readings too. Getting a good TA is really important to help develop your responses, but at the end of the day Waldman still grades most of the essays, so write towards what he wants to hear. Going to office hours so he can put a name to a face also helps your grade a lot. Lectures are quite optional and I enjoyed listening to a few minutes before playing games or working on homework. He requires a notebook and one page entries suffice and adding a drawing of a building he talks about helps take up space.