Education
What is CEP?
Community, Environment and Planning (CEP) is a self - directed, student - run interdisciplinary Bachelor of Arts degree within the University of Washington’s College of Built Environments. Because of the nature of this program, no two students will define CEP in the same way.
My perspective on this program is one I think I generally share with my peers. CEP flourishes through the community we build in our small cohort. While we share both similar and different interests within our community, the passion of individuals in their respective fields, and their strength in organizing people to accomplish things, inspires me. You will find many leaders throughout different fields in the cohort, whether it’s within student councils, heading clubs, or organizing community events. The ability to harness our passions to accomplish something great is one of the most profound strengths of this major, and CEP’s community creates an atmosphere that encourages this.
View my complete ISP here. Course descriptions available below.
Course Descriptions
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CEP 301 - The Idea of Community
Theories of community and communal rights and responsibilities. Experience building a learning community within major. Explores struggles for community in every sector of life.
As a transfer student, this class introduced me to the CEP structure and intensely collaborative way of learning. Through large group discussions, I explored how to think more critically about subjects, and facilitating a course module as students taught me how to interact and engage with an audience.
CEP 400 - Governance
Emphasizes personal and collective leadership, democratic decision making, and learning through direct action and reflection. Explores and develops students' personal skills as doers and leaders, while also learning how to form and function as effective groups.
Governance is one of the cornerstones of CEP. Through this class time, I headed the COM (communications) committee as a point, where I was responsible for organizing projects and working with our team of committee students in making communications materials for the major. Post-governance, I attended steering, where I along with other committee points discussed the long term goals of the CEP major. This collaborative class and space has taught me so much about working in groups towards completing project goals.
CEP 300 - Retreat
Focuses on planning analysis assessment and development of the major. Opportunities for community building and all-major policy deliberation and decisions. Workshops for skill building in consensus, facilitation, and for major-specific activities such as developing individual study plans and study abroad experiences.
Retreat set me up to get to know my peers more closely. It is a day (or weekend) of getting to know the cohort, along with setting goals for the major and its committees, planning out both the quarter and the year. The importance of social bonds to your peers is often overlooked in the academic realm, and retreat helped to lock in the basis of our supportive community.
L ARCH 212 - Designing the Future
Ecological/environmental instability and resulting social/cultural disruptions make the world in which spatial designers work increasingly uncertain. Lectures and guest speakers explore diverse ways in which design may create more sustainable futures. Course activities, including in-class design exercises, internet research, group discussions, take home projects, etc. encourage synthetic/integrative thinking.
This course was my first real academic experience with Landscape Architecture. It taught me more on the politics and philosophy behind the built environment, and ended with a design project on redesigning a space near campus that would better benefit the area.
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CEP 302 - Environmental Response
Explores issues of environmental crisis and societal responses. Readings and reflective analysis from broad selection of authoritative sources to develop grounded perspective in ecological literacy and consciousness. Concurrently, experiential education in challenges and practical responses to building sustainable society through participation in community-based environmental effort.
This course, rooted in a concern for contemporary environmental issues, taught me more about the connection between our society’s structure and their impact on the environment. It also introduced me to the rigorous environmental processes which large projects must go through for approval, giving me insight into public comment collection.
CEP 400 - Governance
See Autumn 2023 for details
ARCH 410 - Introduction to Architectural Photography
Basic elements and processes of architectural photography to include camera controls, exposure technique, photo processing, and fundamental principles of photographing architecture. Student must provide own 35 mm (or larger) camera with manual operating controls.
Architectural photography improved my eye within the built environment. The medium of the course, film photography, also emphasized to me the importance of tangibility in such a digital world. The intentionality behind the finite and time - bound process of film photography and processing contrasts greatly to the instant nature of many of the processes we view as normal in our society. Sometimes, the most convenient solution isn’t the best solution.
URBDP 480 - Planning as a Profession
This course gives students interested in the planning profession an opportunity to understand the different pathways and career choices within the profession. This course will introduce students to guest professionals in various planning careers and highlight key issues, skills used and tips to entering the field. This course focuses on professional practice rather than analytical methods or theory.
Planning as a profession informed me of the broad range of careers within planning, allowing me to put a more tangible idea in my head for my educational path. The opportunity to talk to experts within the field highlighted the intersectionality that exists between all jobs, connected by the built environment.
URBDP 532 - Current Topics in Transportation Planning and Policy
The course is designed for both students who specialize in transportation and students who are interested in exploring this subject area. For the first group of students, the class provides an opportunity to advance their knowledge by examining selected topics in depth and gaining critical insights about the interconnectivity—often complementary in nature—of various planning and policy approaches. For the second group, the class gives them a broad exposure to urban transportation problems and introduces them to different ideas and practices aimed at addressing these problems, along with important concepts and analytical frameworks.
This course demonstrated to me the unique challenges that specifically the United States faces with tackling sustainable transportation, again highlighting how politics and society shapes the ways we exist. Exploring the different methods of attempting to solve modern transportation issues demonstrated how there exists no one correct way to fix an issue.
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CEP 303 - Social Structures and Processes
Investigates use of formal and informal social structures and processes within context of community and environment. Looks at patterns and institutions of social organization and relationships among different sectors. Issues of interrelatedness, citizenship, knowledge, and communication.
CEP 303 continued building on my knowledge of navigating the built environment through combining ideas of power structures with environment-driven policy considerations. The course taught me the importance of deeply investigating the history and context in an area, demonstrating how decisions made generations before me compound over time and cause issues or benefits to our environment, both natural and built. I further worked on my facilitation skills in this course, teaching to and working with the whole class in exploring a course module.
CEP 400 - Governance
See Autumn 2023 for details
CEP 300 - Retreat
See Autumn 2023 for details
CEP 498 - Planning Practicum
This practicum brings together multiple planning elements within the context of a real-world problem. You will explore planning and design at the city, neighborhood, and site scale for various clients in the public, private and non-profit sectors.
This studio-based planning course connected my student based team with a real world client, giving me a chance to discover some of the communication and planning challenges of a complex site-centered project. I also became much more competent within project research, conducting interviews with experts within the technology field I was responsible for in order to better inform the site design. This intensely tangible course demonstrated to me the importance of a well - coordinated team, as well as communication with the client.
CEP 498 - Study Abroad Pre-seminar
Formed the basis for the curriculum of the Summer 2024 Paris 2030 study abroad program. Prepares students for differences in language and culture. Introduces students to concepts that will be investigated on the trip.
This preseminar course prepared me for my summer study abroad course to Paris. We reviewed the language, culture, and political aspects of the country, as well as built the important social ties with each other that would allow for a more fulfilling experience on the trip, both socially and educationally.
URBDP 370 - Reading the City
Introduces students to scholarly and creative writing on cities. Explores critical methods for understanding our experiences of cities. Experiments with how we can use these ideas to “read” a city.
I learned to a much deeper extent about the political systems which construct our built environment, and the ways in which planners hold immense power in how populations exist, but also how people defy these structures. It gave me a chance to consider my own local space which I live within, and dive into the powers which shaped the space - for better and for worse.
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URBDP498 A & B - Paris 2030 - The Future is Green
This program examines how Paris is transforming to meet contemporary urban challenges with a bold goal: becoming one of Europe’s most sustainable cities by 2030. From the Paris Accord to the 2024 Olympic legacy and the "bioclimatic urban plan," students will explore green infrastructure, the 15-minute city model, rewilding efforts, and new water policies. Through site visits, tours, and workshops with local experts, students will critically assess who benefits from these changes—and who might be left behind. Living outside the tourist core, students will engage with everyday Paris and produce creative portfolios grounded in social justice and ecological design.
This study abroad program explored a system of operating that is entirely different from the US - highlighting some of the important policy differences that work together with planning decisions to make urban areas successful. I consider myself extremely privileged to have been able to to immerse myself in the way of life of a Paris resident for a month, and the differences in how both authorities and the general public appropriate public space helped to inspire my senior project.
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CEP 460 - Planning in Context
Examines theory against backdrop of practice for broad historical understanding of social, political, environmental planning. Critique from viewpoints, e.g., planning history, ethics, ecofeminism, environmental justice, class and capitalism, planning and global economy. Develop personalized history reflecting individual experience, professional experience, and philosophical heritage of planning profession.
This course allowed me to again collaborate with a client alongside a group of my peers. Working with a government agency to collect data was an exciting experience, and better prepared me for a career in the built environment.
CEP 400 - Governance
See Autumn 2023 for details
CEP 300 - Retreat
See Autumn 2023 for details
CEP 490 - Senior Project Prep Seminar I: Research and Project Scoping
Supports the conceptualization and planning of senior project/capstone work. Focuses on selecting a project, beginning a literature review, finding a mentor, and developing a plan.
In this course I was able to begin my first in depth resource project. I learned how to gather and consider scholarly articles, write a literature review, and begin to define a methodology for my project. This course set me up academically for the yearlong senior capstone project.
URBDP 404 - Introduction to Geographic Information Systems (GIS)
Offers a hands-on introduction to Geographical Information Systems (GIS) for students in urban planning and related fields. The course explores how maps can describe and analyze urban issues across space. Through lectures and labs, students will learn to create, analyze, and present spatial data using ArcGIS. By the end, students will be able to manage spatial data, perform basic spatial analyses, and produce clear, effective maps.
I learned how to navigate ArcGIS and its role in spatial analysis as a method of data and research. Geographically defined data contained a new approach to considering urban issues, in a way I had not fully considered before, but working on mapping/GIS projects helped connect how to turn these data points into information that can inform people about issues and shortcomings that would otherwise go unseen.
CEP 446 - Internship
Connects core and individual courses with field work. Group and individual readings develop understanding of how students' internships and field placements constitute particular element of community and environmental planning. Explores how what we do for a living is part of our lives as citizens and public service.
Learning to navigate the professional world can be challenging, and this course set me up well for just that. I learned how to stand behind the work I’ve done, grow a network, and confidently interview. Receiving this advice from an industry professional was great help, and revealed many aspects of job hierarchies I had not considered before.
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CEP 461 - Ethics and Identity
Examination of personal, societal, vocational, environmental, planning ethics. Readings and discourse on ethical foundations for public life. Individual and group readings on values, human potential. Develops understanding of ecological context, moral responsibility, self-awareness. Constructs positive, diverse view of humanity, environment regardless of race, gender, ethnicity, beliefs.
This course revealed to me how I and my class had grown in our abilities to facilitate since the beginning of last academic year. Ethics is a tough subject to speak absolutely on, but the variety of ethical perspectives reviewed in this class, as well as their applications to contemporary social and planning issues, has better equipped me to consider new perspectives.
CEP 400 - Governance
See Autumn 2023 for details
CEP 491 - Senior Project Prep Seminar II: Methods and Actualization
Focuses on implementing the senior project/capstone, including revisions and updates as seen fit.
Here I learned how to create a completely new methodology by considering literature within my senior project subject. More generally, I learned the importance of managing project deadlines and expectations in a self - driven project on a multi-month scale.
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CEP 462 - Community and Environment
Capstone quarter merges core seminars, disciplinary courses in major, community field experiences for mastery of personal knowledge and skills. Reflection and synthesis of themes in major; engagement with contemporary issues. Compares theoretical definitions of community and environment with individual philosophies and knowledge within thoughtful, applied context.
This course helped wrap up my yearlong capstone project, which represents a physical experimentation of the ideas about public space and design I have culminated over my two years at the UW.
CEP 400 - Governance
See Autumn 2023 for details
CEP 300 - Retreat
See Autumn 2023 for details
L ARCH 363 - Ecological Design and Planning
Introduction to landscape ecological theory applied to urban environments. Comparison of different vocabularies used to describe landscape structure and function, from the fields of landscape design, urban design, and biology. Discussion of design theories that have sought to re-center landscape planning and design around the goal of achieving ecological sustainability.
Properly introduced me to the idea of ecological design and how to consider balancing it with public space. Reviewed social and political factors which informed me on how these structures drive ecological disrepair.
Individualized Study Plan
As Part of CEP’s self directed program structure, students are required to establish a document that informs their path and direction in the major. It describes the academic basis behind our class choices and reflects on our educational aspirations and accomplishments. Here, I discuss the intentionality behind my course choices, explaining the passions that guided me towards taking these courses and what each accomplished for me.
Included is a worksheet and description list of the courses I took in CEP.
You can find more information on how the ISP document shapes the CEP academic experience on the CEP Website.
DI-alleY Senior project
The goal of my capstone project done in my senior year of CEP was to see if I could create a physical improvement to an area, that created value for the public. I chose to approach the project through a lens of tactical urbanism, because as a student, it felt like the correct time to execute a project that was experimental and unsanctioned in its nature. As someone who is passionate about designing things, as well as a fan of creating with my own hands, creating a physical installation of self-built planter boxes and seeing what effect it had on an alleyway (through observing activity within the alleyway with a camera I installed myself) was a perfect exercise in creativity and problem solving. As I worked on creating the installation, I collected observations via the camera, and over time, this seemingly dull alley created a story full of many ordinary people. While the activities that occurred in the alleyway were unremarkable at best, being able to see what this place meant to so many different people was beautiful in its own sense. And in the end, people came together to use the alley with its new furniture.
Projects and experiences
The Surrey Downs Neighborhood:
an exploration of neighborhood space and the factors which shape it.
OneRedmond Site proposal for Sound Transit Marymoor Village
This project allowed me to gain experience within working with a client, balancing spatial needs and zoning restrictions with client expectations. On this project, I was in charge of researching a feasible planetarium setup for the site along with technology for the space. Additionally, I coordinated the presentation design and order.
Accessibility Improvements to the Paris Metro System
As part of the Paris study abroad program, we presented a re-imagination of one aspect of Paris we had experienced. Due to my near constant use of the metro system, my project was based on an often overlooked aspect of the expansive system: mobility disability accessibility. My approach combined best practices for updating stations, with a reimagined top level of one Paris Metro station that incorporated ecological design improvements.
CEP Reflection
Coming to UW as a transfer student, I had no real idea of what to expect from CEP. Having taken two gap years due to the pandemic, I was eager to return to school but weary of the expansive UW campus and my friend’s experiences of having a hard time finding community. I knew being a commuter would only add to my difficulty being immersed in the college life. However, the CEP program quickly helped me feel at home on campus. Having learned the importance of a community through my experience at a Danish Folk High School, I was relieved to experience a major which saw social collaboration as equally educational to written material. An aspect of CEP I quickly came to love was committee time and governance. Every Friday, on top of regular UW coursework, our major would come together as a whole and discuss topics relevant to us and the major’s future. This offered a place for both groups and individual students to present on topics passionate to them and share their unique perspectives with the rest of us. Additionally, through committee time, I got to collaborate more directly with my peers on creative projects related to the Major. Committee time is unique in that each committee is run by elected students in each committee, called committee points, meaning that our peers would directly structure this critical period towards completing goals in the major. In other programs, this is handled by administrative staff, but this major is structured to task the students with this responsibility. Our ability to do this was also enhanced through the facilitation – based structure of CEP classes, where groups of us are in charge of leading a facilitation of class modules, hosting discussions and activities to engage our audience of peers. Intrigued by the possibilities that come with coordinating a group of students, I applied to run for committee point within the Communications committee. Upon my election into the position in Spring of 2024, I began to learn the importance of structuring goals so that they feel comprehensible, and delegating tasks to all. While philosophically, governance is essential to the future of the major, the course itself is weighed very lightly academically, amounting to only one credit per quarter (a normal course is five credits). This meant that some peers had difficulty seeing the value of their work. The process of finishing a project is to me rewarding in itself, and I tried to introduce the experience of this reward to my peers early in the quarter as a form of motivation for them to take on bigger projects as the quarters progressed. I wanted to share this feeling of satisfaction that I had felt completing projects with others, and have it inspire them to take on projects of their own, since committee time offered the space to do so. Combined with weekly meetings on the structure as well as frequent peer feedback sessions, I felt my ability to facilitate groups towards accomplishing projects grow as my time in the major progressed. I am excited to continue chasing this satisfaction of a job done well and share the feeling of this success with my peers.
Going into the CEP major, I had no real experience working with processes in the built environment. Throughout my educational timeline, I have taken courses in sociology and political science, but never experienced how they relate to our surroundings. My dual formation in both the US and Denmark meant that I could feel a contrast between how I existed in each place, and I knew that the way the built environment was structured influenced why I felt each place and way of life was so different. However, it wasn’t until I explored planning, design and policy in various classes, that the social reasons behind why our built environment looks the way it does became clearer to me. The built environment has a profound effect on how we live our lives as well as influencing the social structures which develop from each organization of place. Understanding how all aspects of society are so interconnected with how places develop has given me a better understanding of how to go about shaping an urban setting that benefits us all. However, there is still much for me to learn in this field. I am excited to dive more into creating environments for people that ultimately make them happier, and ensuring this is done in a way that doesn’t exclude other people from the benefits.
Part of what helped me view this contrast of ways of living directly, was my study abroad trip to Paris in the Summer of 2024. Though I have previously lived in Europe, this trip gave me a true feeling of being transplanted into a new area. I had to relearn how to mesh with each way of living, whether it was mobility through the Metro system, recreation utilizing Paris’s parks, or socialization and where to form connections with people. On this trip, through a curriculum looking at how space in Paris is used, I was able to see many ways of how people utilize spaces, creating value out of an area previously less used. The idea that no area is ever “new”, just reappropriated from its previous use, has stuck with me since. An area we may consider useless could still be used for many things and create value for beings, but that use may not always be comprehended by us.
These ideas all helped to inform my senior project, outlined on this website in detail. The reasoning behind creating such a tangible and experimental senior project was to really explore these concepts that I had been taught about over my time in college. What good is a concept if you can’t put it to use? I wanted to do a creative project rather than an academic one, because the open-ended possibilities of CEP’s senior project is a rare opportunity to create work that isn’t just a design concept or policy booklet. I wanted to create a change, though small, that people in my surroundings could interact with however they saw fit and create value in their day in a setting that would otherwise remain exactly how it is. Observing one place over the course of months also showed me how even the most unremarkable spaces generate small moments of value across many people. If not for seeing this with my own eyes, I don’t think I would have realized how interesting an empty alley could be. While at the end of the day we don’t necessarily think of each place we traversed during the day, our unconscious experience going through an area influences our mood. If every unremarkable place we walked through contained a small positive surprise, these influences could add up. I hope to continue finding the value in little moments generated by our built environments and find a way to more broadly create value and happiness for people through the field.
Coming out of my senior year and into the professional world, I stand in a doorway that leads to many possibilities. I am excited to explore them all and immerse myself in that world. What is currently important to me in doing this, is to explore where geographically I want my future to be. While I am comfortable navigating life here in Seattle, I want to connect more with my Danish side and set aside time working a job (or internship, if I’m lucky!) in a Danish city where I can better form and idea of what a future there could look like. Regardless of place or time, though, I want to continue exploring what I consider a newfound ability to enact the things I dream of. Through different projects throughout my time in CEP, I feel that I have discovered that the best way to find an answer to your questions, or a solution to a dilemma, is to assess the resources around you and reach out to the people who are passionate in these subjects. If you decide it would be cool to see a mural on a wall, the only person that can begin moving the wheels of turning that into reality, is yourself. I feel a lot more equipped to take the ideas I have and work on making them come to fruition. Challenges and failures encountered through this process are ultimately just learning, and that is valuable too. I’m excited to continue to learn more as a person and within the field of design and planning and have a future doing great things for people.