Lester Escobal | PlanetTerp

Information	Review
Lester Escobal ARCH242 Anonymous 05/11/2015	Lester was one of my favorite professors that I've had at Maryland, However ARCH242 is simply impossible unless you have previous drawing experience. I took this class with no prior drawing experience and it was, well, awful. I put more work into ARCH242 than I did with any other class I've ever taken here (Its a crime that this isn't 4 credits) and received the worst grade I've ever gotten.
Lester Escobal ARCH242 Expecting an A- Anonymous 12/21/2010	For those who don't see it, ARCH242 frankly is one of the weed out classes before studio. The expectations and breakdown of the course have already been talked about by others so I'm not going to go there. The one thing I do want to warn you about is that it's difficult to get an A in this course. Sometimes you'll think that you did well and followed every single instruction but get back an 87, which will irk you to no end. Frankly, it is hard to go beyond the 90 borderline (a grade in the 80's isn't bad either, considering a 94 for the course is an A+) The key to going beyond the 90 borderline is to BREAK THE RULES. Your drawings should be about communicating a certain idea and you, as the author, need to decide what's necessary and what isn't. Lester and the TAs love it, or at least endorse it, when you break rules. Instructions are often open-ended. Lester wants to see just how creative you could get. But do note that breaking rules doesn't mean to shade when the assignment explicitly states no shading. Don't miss the point of the assignment! Like I said, very little instructions are given in this course, even in lectures and labs unless you actively seek help. Often in lecture you just sit there and watch Lester flip through slides. They are a good source of inspiration. The TAs don't give very specific instructions either unless you personally ask for help. This course is about making it on your own. Friday day morning's pinups are a good way to get exposed to others' ideas. Flip through books of architects to get inspirations. Employ your sketchbook and do lots of exploratory sketches before starting each assignment to consolidate exactly what you're trying to communicate. Studio's going to be crazy and 242 gets you ready for that. If you don't want it, nobody can help you get there. Before you whine, architecture is a lifestyle.
Lester Escobal ARCH242 Expecting a B Anonymous 05/21/2010	If you're reading this, you probably don't have a choice as to whether to take it or not, but for this class it is good to know what to expect. Essentially, this class has four major weekly components: the project, the lecture, the lab and the sketchbook. The projects comprise the bulk of the class (79% of your grade) and are weighted based on difficulty and time-intensiveness. Each week has a specific drawing concept that is taught (figure-ground, orthographic drawings, light logic, etc.) and the drawing you submit directly assesses your comprehension and execution of the week's technique (0ccasionally each drawing requires more than one drawing, though). Unfortunately, the drawings are extremely time consuming, and aside from the first couple of drawings and one later on in the course which only take about three hours, expect to spend 10+ hours on each assignment, i.e. don't start every Thursday night like many people do (although you inevitably will some weeks). Every Friday morning, you pin up your drawings and Lester discusses the ones he finds intriguing (usually because they did something unique and it either failed or succeeded dramatically), highly encouraging class input. Occasionally he switches up the structure from pure review. The lectures tend to repeat a lot of material from ARCH170 or simply don't really go into very much depth on the topic. The only useful parts of the lectures come when he shows examples of that week's project, which are good to pay attention to. The lab's are normally useful, however at two hours often feel far too long. Essentially, you TA has you practice whatever technique you're learning that week and provides feedback - occasionally you have two-week projects, in which case the TA has another review (since only a sixth of the drawings are talked about in the earlier review) in which he critiques your project personally. The work you do in lab is collected every few weeks and accounts for 9% of your grade. The final aspect of the course is your sketchbook. Your sketchbook is used primarily as a means to quickly mess around with various ideas you might have for that week's project. This is fairly difficult early on as a lot of the drawings don't really involve that much creativity, but later the sketchbook is very useful. TAs may also require you to take notes on the week's readings (which can be helpful if you don't understand the technique), the lectures, the reviews, or other architecture books in your sketchbook, or you might want to do so on your own just to beef your sketchbook up. Sketchbooks are collected with the lab work to form your portfolio and account for 12% of your grade. Now, as a whole the class is an unbelievable amount of work and should absolutely be four credits, and you will complain about that fact constantly, however there is a lot to be learned in this class, and it wasn't until the end of the semester that I realized this. Lester is an extremely knowledgeable and affable professor who wants nothing more than for his students to succeed, and is therefore a very good resource (he usually comes back to the arch building sometime during the week to offer his help). It wasn't until the end of the semester that I started to get to know him and I regretted that, so I urge you not to make the same mistake. This class truly exemplifies getting back only as much as you put in.
Lester Escobal ARCH242 Expecting a B- Anonymous 04/30/2009	This course is one of the most demanding 3 credit courses, time wise. Be prepared to spend 5-10 hours every week on the drawing assignments. Your grades depend solely on these assignments, as there are no tests (well, we had one pop quiz during lecture). Also, having the class on Friday mornings at 8am only ensured that half the class would go sleepless due to the high workload. You must schedule your time extremely well in order to have a class. Your grades also depend a lot more on your TA than Lester himself. They tend to nitpick a lot, finding everything wrong with a drawing, taking off 15-20 points while only describing one small error in the drawing which you spent most of the past 2 days on. All in all, a pain in the a** class, and the only good thing is that you can take a couple of the drawings to use for your portfolio.
Lester Escobal ARCH242 Expecting an A lys 02/11/2009	This course can be very difficult in the beginning if you don't know what to expect. If you don't start applying some of the principles very quickly, your grade will definitely suffer. Some of the things to remember are: composition (fill your page!), line quality (slightly squiggly but mostly straight lines are better than "sketched" lines), line weight, and sloppiness (visible erase marks are frowned upon). If this sounds too picky, I would go talk to some people who've taken this class about the projects and the critiques they've gotten. In my opinion, you learn A LOT from having to abide by these fairly specific guidelines, and Lester is great at teaching, demonstrating, and enforcing these.
Lester Escobal ARCH242 Expecting a B Kedorus 05/08/2008	Lester is truly the master of what he teaches and he does a good job explaining the notes. The class is extremely challenging and takes a lot of work but is worth it in the end. Some of the assignments take a really long time. He’s often late to class, which usually goes over its allotted time, but he’s great teacher when he’s there.
Lester Escobal ARCH242 Expecting an A Anonymous 01/23/2008	Took this class Fall 2006. You must be very interested and passionate about architecture design in order to take this class. The assignments are intensive, one every week, due every Fridays for review. Your grade really depends on your TA not Lester. Get ready to work hard, assignments are time consuming and your ego will get crushed when you see other people's work on Fridays. Drawing supplies are extremely expensive. If you know Arch students, ask them for help.

Lester Escobal
ARCH242

Anonymous
05/11/2015

Lester was one of my favorite professors that I've had at Maryland, However ARCH242 is simply impossible unless you have previous drawing experience. I took this class with no prior drawing experience and it was, well, awful. I put more work into ARCH242 than I did with any other class I've ever taken here (Its a crime that this isn't 4 credits) and received the worst grade I've ever gotten.

Lester Escobal
ARCH242

Expecting an A-
Anonymous
12/21/2010

For those who don't see it, ARCH242 frankly is one of the weed out classes before studio. The expectations and breakdown of the course have already been talked about by others so I'm not going to go there. The one thing I do want to warn you about is that it's difficult to get an A in this course. Sometimes you'll think that you did well and followed every single instruction but get back an 87, which will irk you to no end. Frankly, it is hard to go beyond the 90 borderline (a grade in the 80's isn't bad either, considering a 94 for the course is an A+) The key to going beyond the 90 borderline is to BREAK THE RULES. Your drawings should be about communicating a certain idea and you, as the author, need to decide what's necessary and what isn't. Lester and the TAs love it, or at least endorse it, when you break rules. Instructions are often open-ended. Lester wants to see just how creative you could get. But do note that breaking rules doesn't mean to shade when the assignment explicitly states no shading. Don't miss the point of the assignment! Like I said, very little instructions are given in this course, even in lectures and labs unless you actively seek help. Often in lecture you just sit there and watch Lester flip through slides. They are a good source of inspiration. The TAs don't give very specific instructions either unless you personally ask for help. This course is about making it on your own. Friday day morning's pinups are a good way to get exposed to others' ideas. Flip through books of architects to get inspirations. Employ your sketchbook and do lots of exploratory sketches before starting each assignment to consolidate exactly what you're trying to communicate. Studio's going to be crazy and 242 gets you ready for that. If you don't want it, nobody can help you get there. Before you whine, architecture is a lifestyle.

Lester Escobal
ARCH242

Expecting a B
Anonymous
05/21/2010

If you're reading this, you probably don't have a choice as to whether to take it or not, but for this class it is good to know what to expect. Essentially, this class has four major weekly components: the project, the lecture, the lab and the sketchbook. The projects comprise the bulk of the class (79% of your grade) and are weighted based on difficulty and time-intensiveness. Each week has a specific drawing concept that is taught (figure-ground, orthographic drawings, light logic, etc.) and the drawing you submit directly assesses your comprehension and execution of the week's technique (0ccasionally each drawing requires more than one drawing, though). Unfortunately, the drawings are extremely time consuming, and aside from the first couple of drawings and one later on in the course which only take about three hours, expect to spend 10+ hours on each assignment, i.e. don't start every Thursday night like many people do (although you inevitably will some weeks). Every Friday morning, you pin up your drawings and Lester discusses the ones he finds intriguing (usually because they did something unique and it either failed or succeeded dramatically), highly encouraging class input. Occasionally he switches up the structure from pure review. The lectures tend to repeat a lot of material from ARCH170 or simply don't really go into very much depth on the topic. The only useful parts of the lectures come when he shows examples of that week's project, which are good to pay attention to. The lab's are normally useful, however at two hours often feel far too long. Essentially, you TA has you practice whatever technique you're learning that week and provides feedback - occasionally you have two-week projects, in which case the TA has another review (since only a sixth of the drawings are talked about in the earlier review) in which he critiques your project personally. The work you do in lab is collected every few weeks and accounts for 9% of your grade. The final aspect of the course is your sketchbook. Your sketchbook is used primarily as a means to quickly mess around with various ideas you might have for that week's project. This is fairly difficult early on as a lot of the drawings don't really involve that much creativity, but later the sketchbook is very useful. TAs may also require you to take notes on the week's readings (which can be helpful if you don't understand the technique), the lectures, the reviews, or other architecture books in your sketchbook, or you might want to do so on your own just to beef your sketchbook up. Sketchbooks are collected with the lab work to form your portfolio and account for 12% of your grade. Now, as a whole the class is an unbelievable amount of work and should absolutely be four credits, and you will complain about that fact constantly, however there is a lot to be learned in this class, and it wasn't until the end of the semester that I realized this. Lester is an extremely knowledgeable and affable professor who wants nothing more than for his students to succeed, and is therefore a very good resource (he usually comes back to the arch building sometime during the week to offer his help). It wasn't until the end of the semester that I started to get to know him and I regretted that, so I urge you not to make the same mistake. This class truly exemplifies getting back only as much as you put in.

Lester Escobal
ARCH242

Expecting a B-
Anonymous
04/30/2009

This course is one of the most demanding 3 credit courses, time wise. Be prepared to spend 5-10 hours every week on the drawing assignments. Your grades depend solely on these assignments, as there are no tests (well, we had one pop quiz during lecture). Also, having the class on Friday mornings at 8am only ensured that half the class would go sleepless due to the high workload. You must schedule your time extremely well in order to have a class. Your grades also depend a lot more on your TA than Lester himself. They tend to nitpick a lot, finding everything wrong with a drawing, taking off 15-20 points while only describing one small error in the drawing which you spent most of the past 2 days on. All in all, a pain in the a** class, and the only good thing is that you can take a couple of the drawings to use for your portfolio.

Lester Escobal
ARCH242

Expecting an A
lys
02/11/2009

This course can be very difficult in the beginning if you don't know what to expect. If you don't start applying some of the principles very quickly, your grade will definitely suffer. Some of the things to remember are: composition (fill your page!), line quality (slightly squiggly but mostly straight lines are better than "sketched" lines), line weight, and sloppiness (visible erase marks are frowned upon). If this sounds too picky, I would go talk to some people who've taken this class about the projects and the critiques they've gotten. In my opinion, you learn A LOT from having to abide by these fairly specific guidelines, and Lester is great at teaching, demonstrating, and enforcing these.

Lester Escobal
ARCH242

Expecting a B
Kedorus
05/08/2008

Lester is truly the master of what he teaches and he does a good job explaining the notes. The class is extremely challenging and takes a lot of work but is worth it in the end. Some of the assignments take a really long time. He’s often late to class, which usually goes over its allotted time, but he’s great teacher when he’s there.

Lester Escobal
ARCH242

Expecting an A
Anonymous
01/23/2008

Took this class Fall 2006. You must be very interested and passionate about architecture design in order to take this class. The assignments are intensive, one every week, due every Fridays for review. Your grade really depends on your TA not Lester. Get ready to work hard, assignments are time consuming and your ego will get crushed when you see other people's work on Fridays. Drawing supplies are extremely expensive. If you know Arch students, ask them for help.