A global exploration through community engagement that enriches your life
Testimonials
Student's Stories
Very unique, Very powerful, Very meaningful... Our experience in Agra is unexplainable, as is the trip as a whole. We continue to move forward, absorbing anything and everything in sight. The few days spent in Agra were greatly appreciated and quite interesting. We must move on, changing our lives and changing the way we view the world."
Jason Gilliland
Upon Return: "Nothing has changed her, but I have changed. So, everything seems changed."
Chad Phelan (Berkeley)
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"The confrontations and observations we made can serve as an introduction to the social and environmental responsibilities of designers and planners. We should pay more attention to our environment and uncover hidden problems of our own society in order to enhance solutions. Problems won't be solved if nobody is aware of them. ... This field study was like a bombardment of building kinds, urban settings, planning, and design attitudes, social and cultural customs, environmental views and approaches. It is like studying gets new motivations, directions and perspectives; one gets more out of it than if one would simply follow the direct way: follow the curriculum without reflecting on the studied content."
Dorothee Dettbarn
"I was lucky to live with my family because they were very accepting and caring. According to my fellow students, the houses ranged from dirty to clean, no windows and cold air to completely eco-friendly. The students did not care if one person had a better house than another; they were friends just the same. This is not the case with America, we like to compare ourselves amongst those around us and even separate ourselves from others with lower income or poorer accommodations.."
Grace Bogdan (Portland State University)
The studio helped me gain new insight into planner's role. After the first project, I changed my view of the role of a planner ... to enhance the local community through support rather than providing materials from an outsider view. The second project took only two weeks and was not as complicated as the first, but gave me a chance to practice what I learned.
Hou Wenya
"If these walls could talk, and surely they've been dying to, what would they have to share? For one thing, they could tell our questioning neighbors that we were a visiting group of 7 students and a professor, not some random rotation of Americans visiting someone who does a lot of laundry, but students who go to class every morning; have taken on the challenge (to Americans) of sharing the neighborhood with water buffalos, dogs, cows, goats, and other associated animals; we've learned to play cricket, play Holi, play rummy; we've been dancing, made dinner, and lived."
Becky Lehman
Touch and personal space are also very different here. Between the same sex, relationships are much more physical than in the US. It is a sign of friendship for men to hold hands as they walk down the street or to put their arms around each other's shoulders. Women, when they greet each other, often take the other's hand while they are talking, hug, or walk arm-in-arm. Waiting in line is different because there really is no line."
Lindsay Bacurin
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"CapAsia to this day remains one of the most profound and uplifting adventures of my life. It challenged the integrity of my world-view and led me to a place of great inquisition. It was a fully immersive study program that was primarily focused on circumstances of place; engagement of the cultural, environmental and spiritual landscape of the immediate."
Robert Horner
"Topical discussions ... in the morning ... prepared students to think from a certain vantage point that would diverge from other vantage points. In essence, a question would branch to more questions. It was a method that allowed the students to create their own curriculum. ... I would be encouraged to question everything, from the top: programs, systems, laws, to the bottom: local behavior, opinions, social developments, revolutionary concepts."
Tiffany Lim
"I had learned so much on this trip that I did not know whether I could talk or walk the same way I had previously done before the trip. ... I think I see it in a way that uses the skills and knowledge I learned on CapAsia to become a planner that plans with people and not for the people."
Harry Davis