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I graduated with a planning masters in 2013, along with a JD, and I work as a planner for a Midwestern college town. What do you want to know? And are you looking at undergrad or grad programs? I'm the only practicing planner I know of on SA but I know another guy just started his masters program. I'll send him a PM and see if he's interested.
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Oct 21, 2015 22:35
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| # ¿ May 16, 2024 14:19 |
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Uziduke posted:Luckily my local School has both a BA and a Masters accredited program. So I would get my BA first and then see if the Masters is needed. This is a good way to do it. My undergrad degree was not a planning degree; in fact, I didn't know planning was a thing til I was already in law school. The university I attended for law school happened to have a planning graduate program, so it was relatively simple to pick up the joint degree. However, my planning school also offered an undergrad planning degree. I and several of my classmates felt that the undergrad planning curriculum prepared students for planning careers more than the grad curriculum did. Their coursework was more applied, whereas the grad coursework was more theoretical. When I think about what courses were really helpful to me as a practicing planner, I put a few law school courses (e.g. Land Use Law, State and Local Gov't Law) above anything I took in planning school. Is EWU like this as well? I have no idea. But I would suggest trying to learn if the curriculum is more practice-oriented or theory-oriented. The latter is good if you want to work as a researcher. If you want to be a planner though, search for the former. Uziduke posted:I was wondering on how the job market is and how long it took to get a job. Unfortunately I don't really feel qualified to answer the first part of this question. I was very fortunate in that the department I was interning with just happened to have an opening right when I was graduating. It was the only job I applied to and I got it. If I had not gotten the job, I would have gotten to test the job market waters, but as it was I had an uncommonly easy job search. One way to improve your odds with job hunting is to get as much internship experience as possible. Maybe Washington is different, but here in the Midwest there's a definite "it's not what you know so much as who you know" element. This is especially true after a few years of work. Even if your first job isn't ideal, try to go to your state conference and continue to meet people. It will help you later on if you want to jump ship to a different agency. Uziduke posted:Do you get to go outside and have a good mix of office and outside time? Depends on the kind of projects I have at the time. For example, a couple years ago I was the project manager on our city's first Pedestrian Plan. For the first couple months of the process I was outside a lot since we were gathering info on existing conditions, running public events where we would walk in different neighborhoods, etc. Later in the process I was inside a lot because I was compiling data and laying out the document.
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Oct 22, 2015 13:09
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Here is the cool and good BYOB urban planning thread which everyone should read and contribute to: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3716050
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Oct 22, 2015 13:14
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If you're interested in it, I definitely recommend pursuing it. It's a fairly versatile degree and you should pick up some skills that are marketable outside of planning (e.g. GIS, Adobe Creative Suite, finance/budgeting, etc.). Word to the wise though, avoid this: Uziduke posted:From a young age I played every city/empire builder I could find. I also look at every highway system and think how I would of done it better. in any personal statements you write when you apply. Not because they're bad reasons to be interested in planning, but rather that admissions people read dozens of personal statements on these themes and they get bored of them.
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Oct 22, 2015 18:43
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Drunk Tomato posted:I have a bachelors in a planning-related field, and I can confirm that a masters is pretty much required to get hired as a planner. What part of the country are you in? The undergrads coming out of my alma mater in the Midwest seem to have done pretty well for themselves, at least in terms of finding entry-level employment.
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Jan 21, 2016 15:19
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