"It has been said that the profession has reached the point where it now has the ability to invent its own future."-- William H. Tishler, FASLA

The life of a typical landscape architecture student is rigorous but exciting. Although landscape architecture students certainly work hard, they are also offered many opportunities to be creative, solve problems, and see the world. While in school, students may find themselves working on a real-life problem in the studio, mapping out their region using the latest computer technology, or traveling to international sites to do field work as part of a summer internship. Students also may enter design competitions, allowing them to dig deeply into subjects that fascinate them.

Here are just a few examples of some of the diverse projects created by students in the last few years.

Tackling Real-Life Issues The winning entries in a recent student design competition tackled real-life issues, including a team from the University of Georgia who unified their car-clogged campus with a pedestrian walkway. Other projects involved extensive research into residential planning and suburban sprawl, and innovative designs for a roof garden, park, and memorial to the American slave experience.

The Great River Park The Landscape Studies Center at the University of Minnesota organized a class in which landscape architecture students proposed alternative designs for a riverfront park in St. Paul, Minnesota. The chosen design specified planting schemes to re-create four different types of native plant communities. Plan courtesy Landscape Studies Center/University of Minnesota

St. Louis Community Rehabilitation A winning entry in a student design competition sought to revitalize an inner-city neighborhood in mid-town St. Louis. The design suggested better ways of providing public housing, including plenty of green space for recreation and community gatherings.

Tijuana River Valley A team of California students devised a broad plan that would turn the Tijuana River Valley in Mexico-now polluted with raw sewage--into an ecological model of cross-cultural cooperation. In the plan, a series of ponds and wetlands would biologically cleanse the sewage. One alternative proposed an international peace park that would be open to residents on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border.

Internship programs Summer internship programs offer students the opportunity to learn about the landscape architecture profession in offices throughout the United States and abroad. The best internships offer students an opportunity for field work, planning, rendering, writing, and presenting-skills that enrich the rest of their college years and their professional career as well. Some schools become actively involved in internships-either by helping to place students or by requiring a report or some other academic follow-up to the internship experience.

Reclamation projects Landscape architecture students are increasingly focused on ecological reclamation. Several recent award-winners include a plan to reclaim an old quarry, using environmental art; another outlined a plan for mine reclamation.

Sustainable Development Projects Two student-award winners incorporate aspects of sustainable development into their otherwise different designs. One design shows how compact urban elements fit into a rural landscape, providing for stormwater runoff in an innovative way. Another project makes use of solar and wind energy in an urban development.

GIS applications Students of landscape architecture will find themselves entering the field in a time of remarkable technological advances. Geographic information systems (GIS) are increasingly used to map complex landscapes and plan land-management or conservation-oriented scenarios. In one application, GIS maps are layered and combined with satellite images to plan for future telecommunication needs. In another application, a three-dimensional rendering of Mount St. Helens shows the impact of the eruption that took place there. Images courtesy Institute for a Sustainable Environment/University of Oregon, Earth Resource Mapping, and Microimages