Education

First of all, thank you very much for everything! Going through this course under your guidance has been an amazing experience and a true pleasure.

My experience in the class surpassed my expectations. Javan is an excellent teacher – he wants students to succeed and it shows through his encouragement. He works with students at their level. It was great hearing him share his knowledge and expand upon questions asked by students. His passion for the subject is contagious.

I left the course feeling inspired and with a great foundation. Going forward, I know what steps I can take to further my experience in the field.

Javan, man, it was a tremendous blessing and joy taking this course under your care and stewardship. Thank you so much for sharing yourself and your passion with us. I really appreciate all of your advice, the questions you posed that allowed me to look from various vantage points, and the many gems you bestowed upon us during office hours. Permaculture is pretty new to me, I’m still reading Mollison’s book, so I really can’t thank you enough because you didn’t take a second of time with us for granted and you were a wellspring of knowledge. I know that in everything you did you wanted to give us a significant step up in our abilities as future designers and to those like me who are so new to the world of Permaculture, that was HUGE. You played a crucial role in helping me develop my observational skills and the freedom you allowed us to have with our presentation opened up to some surprising places of creativity within me. It was such a fun, challenging and rewarding experience and I’m so excited to continue with my education, design and journey.

Your feedback meant a lot to me, and it has since week one. My wife listens to your feedback videos with me, and your encouragement meant a great deal to her too. You didn’t know it, but she was also a student of yours this year and she says she likes the cut of your jib!

I wanted to express my gratitude to you for being an amazing & nurturing mentor and grader. I learned so much every time I was able to attend your office hours, and I always appreciated the feedback from your videos. I have to fight a lot of critical thoughts and every time I watched your feedback videos I felt a surge of pride, inspiration, and motivation.  Thank you so much for your wisdom, kindness, and patience. I expect to grow within this field and I hope to cross paths again the future.

This has not only been a course on a new topic, it taught me perseverance and turned my whole life around – new outlook on life, new country, new job, new steeper slope here in the Italian alps (I was worried about the little slope in the garden on the design site in the north of Sweden). I feel hopeful for the future, inspired and happy to have finished the studies, and I have learnt lots about permaculture – and most importantly it has inspired me to continue learning more. My instructor has been super supportive, very constructive, and shared many tips which I as a newbie did not think of, a wealth of knowledge which has been so appreciated. Thank you Javan.

As someone who has a degree in landscape architecture, I felt that the course exercises really refreshed and strengthened my ability to analyze a landscape to the degree where design questions were answered through the research and analysis process. I loved the sector compass exercise and found that really understanding how water was flowing across the site to be instrumental in determining the final concept plan. The course text was extremely helpful and I enjoyed how the readings gave more detail about each section and provided more specific information about certain crops/plants. The instructional videos with the augmented reality sandbox really helped me understand how to evaluate contours, define watersheds, and design for water flow. The instructors of the course did a great job providing feedback, answering questions, and acting as a point of contact for the class!

The Oregon State PDC course is an immersive experience that gives you a comprehensive foundation for permaculture. Whether you are looking to take this course to plot out a personal design or gain a better understanding of what permaculture is all about the video content, the readings, and assignments offer the student a full spectrum of knowledge for basic permaculture techniques. The instructors in this course want you to succeed! Because after all, we are all interested in permaculture to create a more sustainable planet. If you are willing to put in the energy to fully engage in this program, you will find that you will be one big step closer to actualizing your visions.

Thanks for all your great feedback thus far in the course. I’m loving this course and how accessible it has been from home as an adult learner. It’s a perfect synthesis of a lot of things for me and I’m feeling incredibly inspired to build on what I’m learning.  It true that I’ve thought about permaculture design for a long time but couldn’t figure out how to make it work in person with work and then with kids for the last eight years. I’m surprised at how interactive it feels.

The OSU Permaculture Design Course is a fantastic opportunity to better understand and manage the flows of energy through a diversity of design sites. Inspiring videos, engaged and knowledgeable instructors offering insight and guidance, and rigorous assignments challenge students to immerse themselves in learning about their place. Jump in with both feet! The more we can dig in, the more rewarding the experience.

I received wise council from Javan and Karen on site analysis and design, and was inspired by the knowledge of Andrew, Marisha, and the amazing cast of contributors to the course curriculum. Some of my favorite morsels from Javan are “sell your certainty and buy bewilderment,” “what we celebrate persists,” and his description of the incredible tool of assisting others to make design decisions based on their values.

Also awesome was the warm supportive environment in the student chat forums, rich with constructive feedback and exciting ideas. If you can, make sure to round out the phenomenal wealth of digital resources by picking up a field guide, and spending time listening to nature. OSU PDC offers a transformative experience!