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What do you wish you knew about your field of work before getting your urban and regional planning degree or professional certifications?
Where are you now in your career?
How often do you work nights?
Do you have to attend and/or present at weekly meetings open to the public?
Are you still paying off your college loans?
Thank you! ☺
I’m an urban planner/engineer. Community input meetings are common and usually at night, but in my experience those are the latest nights. As you may already know, A LOT of collaboration, and A LOT of communication with people out of your office, inevitably leading to A LOT of lost time due to confusion. Addiitionaly, A LOT of government red tape. The pay is decent but not a fortune, and actually differs a lot regionaly, so I cant speak to thst really.
Degrees in MCP or MRP provide some great opportunities to pursue multiple career paths that go well beyond the more traditional land use/zoning focus of state and local governments. My planning degree goes back more years than I’ll readily admit but has provided a great background for subsequent work in investment banking and project development. I agree with all of K-Cups observations but those are more of the traditional planning focus in local government. His/her comments regarding the critical importance of interpersonal and listening skills can’t be over -emphasized.
When I did my regional planning degree (at the Univ of Pennsylvania) back before the Civil War (or so it feels) the only recognized degrees were either MRP or MCP.. The new MURP degrees now offered by many universities are slightly much more focused on social issues and inner city economic development but its all labeling and marketing. If you go o the PAB website they list the degrees offered by over 200 public and private universities and the names of the degrees vary. You have to go to the individual schools’ website and read about their program focus. Most importantly, see if you can find some alumni in your city or area or ask for some email contacts from their alumni office. That will give you a much better idea of what kinds of jobs their graduates have actually pursued.
Much hatzlacha in whatever path you take.
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