Valencia architecture students pin up their work–and their hopes for admission to architecture school.
The temperature in the room is rising. So is the level of stress and excitement. Architectural models, foam board and pins are scattered all over the floor at Valencia’s Special Events Center. Nearly 80 architecture students are painstakingly pinning their favorite models, sketches and paintings to a 4-foot-by-8-foot board.
For the students, the boards represent more than a three-dimensional portfolio of their work.
These are their tickets to architecture school.
How well they present their work on those boards—known as pin-ups—is crucial. Their admission to architecture school hangs in the balance.
The excitement in the room is palpable.
So is the exhaustion.
“We haven’t slept in, like, three days,” said Valencia architecture students Angel Almanzar, 19, and Juan Diaz, 20. Working side by side, they have been fueling themselves with energy drinks like Monster and 5-Hour Energy.
Held at Valencia’s Special Events Center on April 17 and 18, the UCF “pin-up” is an annual ritual for Valencia’s graduating architecture students. Valencia students who want to be admitted to the University of Central Florida’s architecture program present their best work—and then display it for a team of judges who will decide which students get the 38 seats in next year’s junior class at UCF.
But the Valencia students are not alone at the pin-up. Students from 10 other colleges and universities are also competing, just as eager to get admitted to the UCF architecture program.
Read the rest of the article in the Spring/Summer edition of Valencia College’s VITAE magazine.