Featured Student: Sophia Levy
Major (College): Architecture (DAAP)
Post-Graduation Plan: Applying to graduate school for architecture
Advice to Current UHP Students: “Take advantage of the self-designed aspect of the program to explore things you are interested in, even if it's unrelated to your major.”
Graduation Year: 2026
Experiences:
- Strange Tools honors seminar
- Study Abroad in Italy
- Painting Preschools for a Change
- Recipe Family Tree
I went into every experience with an open mind.
Sophia Levy UHP Graduate, 2026
Sophia's UHP Journey
Architecture major Sophia Levy came to UC in search of experiential learning. And she found it--beyond what she had previously imagined--in the UHP, which she describes as valuing “experience over your typical accelerated math class.”
Study-abroad opportunities in Italy and the Netherlands helped Levy take her interests in community and innovation global, while a self-designed experience creating a family recipe book fused her design skills with an exploration of her heritage. But it was Levy’s first self-designed experience, “Painting Preschools for a Change,” that left the deepest mark. Levy developed skills in managing large-scale projects, and a new appreciation for “how individuals make up and impact a community”; in looking back on the weeks she spent creating a large-scale mural, one of her strongest takeaways remains the capacity she uncovered in herself for “effort and dedication.”
Levy recalls: “the UHP has given me the tools to take initiative with confidence and passion and to take the time to reflect when going through pivotal moments, using reflection as a tool to maximize growth through every experience.”
