On April, 6, San Francisco International Airport’s Stephanie C. Jaeger, Director of Architecture, Planning, Design, and Construction invited the Architecture Department of Chabot College and its students to visit the International Airport to learn about the different opportunities a degree in architecture will afford them. The tour started at the BART station inside the San Francisco Airport. The participants rode the trolley to the International terminal where Jaeger explained the earthquake retrofitting and how the airport is working towards becoming a zero-emissions facility.

Students got a chance to learn about the people involved in project planning and the visual aesthetics you see when you walk through the terminals. Karess Batkowski president of the Chabot architecture club said, “This tour inspired me, to see how much work they do and how enthusiastic she was. It just makes me wanna learn all I can to get to where Ms. Jaeger is.”

From there the students briefly visited the aviation museum, and library then continued on the trolley to see the project in progress on terminal two, the new control tower and the new office suites for the building and planning staff. I asked David Carrera the ICC representative of the architecture club if this tour gave him more insight into the field that he wants to become apart of “I think the main thing that this tour did for me was lower the intimidation factor that I think we all have to try to get into this field. So getting to talk to the people in charge and see what they do gives us a little boost of confidence.”  

The students arrived back at their starting point as Ms. Jaeger had to head to her next meeting. As the students communed at the end of the tour I was able to talk to Bryon Lindsey a student of architecture at Chabot College and he said this tour really helped push him more to get his degree “It just shows me architects are needed and how they can make an impact on people’s everyday life.”