Study Abroad
Imagine sketching the Eiffel Tower from a quiet Parisian courtyard or analyzing mass timber structures in Vancouver. Studying abroad isn’t just a trip. It’s a transformative experience that immerses you in the culture, architecture and daily rhythms of another country.
- Build technical skills in drawing and observation.
- Gain a deeper sense of place, how places work and why they endure.
- Experience another country beyond the tourist lens.
BGSU architecture students have traveled to:
- Seattle and Vancouver to explore sustainable mass timber architecture
- Paris and London to uncover the impact of globalism on urban design
How BGSU architecture students benefit from studying abroad
Explore alternative design approaches and construction methods.
Encounter architectural solutions beyond American norms – new ways of shaping space, using materials and responding to the environment. These experiences expand your creative toolkit and make you a more flexible, valuable designer who can bring diverse problem-solving approaches to complex projects.
Engage directly with significant historical architecture.
Move beyond textbooks by experiencing iconic buildings and cities firsthand. Specialized access and immersive tours deepen your understanding of scale, materiality and spatial relationships. Those skills will elevate your design thinking and set you apart in competitive job markets.
Build contextual design skills and cultural awareness.
Experiencing a different culture teaches you to observe and respond to specific climates, building practices, materials and social patterns. You’ll develop sustainable, culturally sensitive solutions and gain the adaptability needed for collaborative, international practice.
Seeing and Sketching: Architecture, Landscape and Urban Form in Emilia-Romagna
Explore how geography, culture and history have shaped the built environment over two millennia. Document your discoveries through sketching and photography.
- Stay in Bologna: Spend the night in a student-friendly hotel, share meals and participate in nightly discussions.
- Daily adventures: Explore Renaissance cities like Ferrara and the medieval porticoes and Roman roads that still shape modern life. Discover how architecture, landscape and urban form reveal centuries of trade, ritual and design.
- Sketchbook as your guide: Document architecture, urban design and cultural patterns.
- Learn to “read” the landscape: Decode how trade, religion and construction shaped public spaces.
Previous Trips
Updated: 11/19/2025 11:07AM