At a glance
Upcoming semesters:
Spring 2024
January 22nd – May 17th
Application deadline:
January 1st 2024
Summer 2024
June 3rd – August 9th
Application deadline:
May 20th 2024
Financial information:
15 week semester
Tuition:
Housing:
$9,100
$3,400
The Vermont Woodworking School Immersion Program is a full-time furniture design and woodworking education program. We're the perfect place for you to begin building a life in craft.
Students enroll at Vermont Woodworking School to immerse themselves in the challenging pursuit of fine woodworking. When you choose to come to VWS, you join a rigorous, supportive, and creative community of woodworkers. Here, you gain access to skilled craftspeople who are excited to share their knowledge of both woodworking skills and furniture design. Classes run throughout the day and the shop is open after hours and on the weekends for added time to hone your craft. Over the course of four semesters, you'll learn how to design and build wooden furniture using traditional hand tools, modern machinery, and contemporary techniques.
At VWS you'll learn how to cut joinery by hand, from bridle joints to compound angle dovetails. You'll become confident using machines large and small. You'll learn to build a drawer, hang a door, bend wood, and cut joinery. You'll design your dream furniture and gain all the skills you need to create heirloom furniture. We look forward to teaching you.
Immersion Program
We accept new students for our Spring, Summer, and Fall semesters throughout the year. No woodworking experience is necessary to apply. We're looking for hard-working, creative, and dedicated people who are excited about starting a career in woodworking. Students may enroll for a minimum of 9-weeks and can stay for up to two and a half academic years.
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Incoming students may choose to enroll in only Foundations 1, which lasts 9 weeks. In which case, tuition costs are prorated to $7,200.
If they wish, they may choose to continue into Design 1 and remain for the full 15 weeks after arriving at school.
Curriculum
In the first semester, students learn the foundations of woodworking and furniture-making through building a Shaker-style hall table. This includes shop, machine and tool safety; sharpening; proper use of hand-tools and equipment; basics of design, joinery, furniture assembly and turning on the lathe. In addition, students in their first semester participate in a design class where they design and build a small table.
In the second semester, students build on the foundational skills learned in semester one. Students learn intermediate skills related to wood bending; building forms and jigs; intermediate joinery and turning; and can start to explore electives such as 3D modeling in Fusion 360, hand tool making, or furniture elements. Students put these skills to use in designing and building a wall-mounted cabinet with at least one fitted drawer and one hinged door.
In the third semester, students gain a deep understanding of casework pieces. All students complete a chest of drawers using web-frame construction and dovetail drawers.