URBAN PLANNING Q&A: grad school, career, and tips for aspiring planners

this is a certified and today's video is

all about urban planning so for those of
you who don't know I studied urban
studies in undergrad and then pursued a
master's in urban planning so in today's
video I'm gonna talk about my career
journey how I decided to pursue the
discipline of urban planning what
exactly an urban planner does to our going into this field and tips for
anyone who is considering pursuing an
urban planning master's degree and
pursuing a career in urban planning so
if you were interested in learning more
about my career journey and how I found
early planning then please keep watching
I wanted to start off by giving a
definition of what urban planning is
because when I told my friends and
family members but I wanted to go to
school for every planning they were like
urban planning is the technical and
political process concerned with a
development and design of land use and
the built environment infrastructure
housing neighborhoods in the
distribution of resources Korean urban
planning would consist of a lot of
writing a lot of research creating maps
on self really is and also facilitating
community workshops you can either work
in the public sector or the private
sector and then there are also several
specialties within the field of urban
planning environment transportation
urban design housing community
development land-use and historic
preservation most planners typically
have knowledge of all of them at least
like general knowledge and then may have
like one or two areas that they focus on
specifically as the name would suggest
planners make plans and in this process
urban planners consult with architects
civil engineers the communities that are
involved within this neighborhood or
city plan politicians so they consult
with people in other fields in order to
develop a comprehensive plan that looks
the feature of a specific neighborhood
or a city urban planning is all about
playing the long game definitely not an
instant gratification type of field you
may make a plan and then shelve it for
years
it can change depending on who was in
office what political party what their
agenda is one thing that's really
important about urban planning is
engaging with the public to make sure
that the plans you are creating that
will ideally create a better city or
community or County are in the best
interests of the residents of that
specific city community County it
doesn't always happen this way but
ideally all plans will consult with the
community that they're supposed to be
planning for I have always been
interested in cities when I was like
five or six and I'll play like Sim City
and the sims and build houses I was
always just really interested in the
built environment from a young age and
then once I got a little bit older and
got my free time I would just go to
Wikipedia and type in the name of a
random city that I'd never been to
before and I would read all like the
demographic information just so we have
the neighborhood like really kind of
nerdy stuff but I don't know like I got
really excited about stuff like that and
then as I got older there were certain
things about because I'm from Philly so
there were certain things about my city
that I noticed that I felt weren't ideal
and I would just wonder like why you
know it seemed like certain
neighborhoods were getting less
resources than other neighborhoods and I
felt like it was super unfair and it was
just something that I would think about
a lot and I actually brought my personal
statement for both college and grad
school around this issue of inequity
within cities and how I was concerned by
it from an early age and knew that I
wanted to have a career where I would
deal with these issues but at the time
when I was in high school even applying
to college I didn't know where every
planning was no one ever talked to me
about it no one I knew was an urban
planner it was something that I kind of
stumbled upon as
was applying to colleges so I went to
Columbia University and when I was
looking at majors I still didn't really
know what I really wanted to do but I
was looking at majors and the two that
stuck out to me most were urban studies
and sociology and urban studies was like
the study of the urban environment I was
like oh that's really cool like I get to
just talk about cities all day which is
something that I like to do in my free
time anyway so all right Beth let me
pick this major and at that point I
still don't really know what my career
path would look like after that but I
figured that was a good first step
identifying a major that I felt like I
would enjoy that I would benefit from
that I would be able to go back to my
community hopefully after graduation and
contribute in a meaningful way I think
that I desire to serve my community in a
positive way was what really drew me to
the discipline of urban planning because
I felt like it would be away from me to
make a positive difference and add value
to the communities that I cared about I
realized that the kind of career that I
wanted to have undergraduate degree
wasn't gonna be enough so I decided to
get a master's in urban planning so I
could learn more of the technical skills
that will be good in a career in urban
planning in order to have a career in
urban planning there are certain hard
and soft skills that are recommended
and/or required technical writing skills
is a big one as an urban planner you're
gonna be writing a lot of plans you're
going to be talking to a lot of
different people are gonna be talking to
residents community members community
agencies nonprofits you're gonna be
talking to the City Council a lot so you
have to know how to communicate
effectively with a lot of different
people and also how to communicate
effectively in writing and technical
writing skills are super super important
critical thinking obviously you're gonna
have to know how to engage with a lot of
different issues that come up in cities
a lot of you know really difficult
issues they may not have one clear-cut
solution so you have to know how to
think creatively think critically think
outside of the box in a lot of different
ways so another skill that is
recommended is GI
software competency a lot of planners
you know they're making them so and they
use GIS as a software in order to make
these maps in order to make the plans
that they make collaboration skills cuz
a lot of plans are made collaboratively
with planners from different departments
who may have different specialties then
knowledge of like economic development
practices important knowledge of Sonia
is important and so I graduated in 2016
from undergrad with a degree in urban
studies I knew that I wanted to go to
grad school some of you may have seen my
video about moving to London and the
grad school process if not I'll put it
on the screen somewhere I took a year
between college and grad school and I
went to London to get my masters and
regional urban planning studies from the
London School of Economics so that
program was only a 12-month program it
was basically just like an overview of
the different aspects of planning I also
got a chance to do a consulting project
in partnership with Old Kent Road which
is an area in London at the time they
were creating a plan to add more
affordable housing to the community I
worked alongside a group of other LSE
students to evaluate the existing plan
for Old Kent Road and then at our
recommendations and we did a
presentation so like our final
presentation and we got to present it
soon officials I'm like the old camp
Road I forget what the name was the
borough this other southern Kings
borough was a really cool project and
gave me the view of what urban planning
is like as a career up until that point
I had a head
internships or anything in the field of
urban planning so all that I knew about
planning was basically from undergrad
from whatever I read outside of school
and then from our grad school
experiences so that final project gave
me the opportunity to see like okay this
is what my career could potentially look
like if I decide to do this full-time
would I do it again with that specific
program I don't know to be honest like
LSE of course is a great school I
learned a lot and I took a lot of really
great classes a lot of my classes are
really small so I got to really engage
with the material but the program itself
I don't feel like I walked away with the
technical skills that are necessary to
go right into a career in urban planning
so like the whole year I didn't do
anything with GIS at all and like I said
like GIS is the main software that's
used to create these maps and create
these plans so I didn't really walk away
with the technical knowledge and then
also because ultimately I will be
working in America after graduating I
didn't really come away with a network
of professionals that could have maybe
assisted me with the job application
process so after I graduated so the year
ended I had about three months to take
my exams
and credit dissertation my dissertation
was an absolute flop I could do a whole
nother video about the dissertation
process but just no child it was
actually terrible well that happened and
then I graduated and the job prospects
were not looking so great it took me a
long time to find a job and then the job
I got after I graduated from grad school
had absolutely nothing to do with urban
planning at all it actually was in
higher education if you are considering
pursuing a career in urban planning make
sure you do a lot of research on
different types of grad school planning
programs make sure that you'll walk away
with the skills that you need in order
to go into a career as an urban planner
if that's ultimately what you want to do
so because I'm in grad school is an
investment I made the choice to go to
LSE because I had a full scholarship so
I don't really regret the decision
because it was a free education of
course like I'm grateful for that but I
was also looking at and then Penn has a
really great planning school I think if
I had decided to go to UPenn I would
have walked away with more of the
technical skills and the ability to just
walk right into a career and planning
and you know mix it up and just start
you know moving and shaking and doing
what I wanted to do
I am grateful though but I did go to
let's see because through my experience
at LSE and through doing that final
project the consulting project I
realized that traditional planning was
not the route that I actually wanted to
take with my career that's kind of
unfortunate that it took me all these
years of school to realize that the
subject that I'm going to school for is
not ultimately where I see myself
term I realized that planning and theory
is not the same in practice I wanted to
be an advocate for the people who are
not being heard in the planning process
not sure like I wasn't really doing that
I was just contributing to the other
side and the other side was kind of
ignoring what the existing residents had
to say so I'm like no after that I was
like you know what I don't feel that
this aligns with Who I am as a person it
doesn't align with my ethics my advice
to anyone who's watching this and
considering going into urban planning do
your research and just make sure that
it's truly what you want to do and I
would also suggest having informational
interviews with planners who are
actively working in the field and our
career is that you could see yourself in
you know before you take that step to go
to grad school talk to them talk to them
about their experiences see if you can
shadow them at work definitely try to do
internships if you can it was hard for
me to find an internship in college
because I felt like they already wanted
you to have a certain level of
experience and it's like I'm coming to
you for this internship to learn and to
get that experience so I don't have it
already
but I'm trying to get it and you're
saying I already need it so it didn't
work out for me and make sure you'll be
able to accomplish what you want to
accomplish with this degree that you're
going for and that's not only for urban
planning that's for any degree you get
like make sure do your research on the
front end and make sure you're actually
going to get out of it what you want to
get out of it if that makes sense
I came home as I said I started working
in Atlanta and higher education I
realized after a few months that it
wasn't what I wanted to do now checking
indeed a lot and then one day I saw this
job posting for a commercial order
manager and I had never heard of that
before I didn't know what that was but I
was reading the job and they basically
it included a lot of the skills and
competencies that I learned in college
and in grad school and it would allow me
to work directly with a community that I
cared about and help them to get
resources and empower them to improve
their own community in a way and the job
is based in Philly so it was a chance
for me to go back to my hometown and do
what I felt was important work as a
commercial quarter manager basically I
work with small businesses on a specific
commercial corridor a lot of these are
businesses that are family owned may
only have one or two employees and
basically I work with them to improve
their business model to gain access to
resources from the city and then I'm
also working on this really cool
streetscape plan which is a plan to
improve the physical quality of the
street basically what I'm trying to do
is work with the business owners to
create a new vision of the commercial
corridor basically my priority is to
make these improvements for the existing
community members but of course with any
positive change there is the threat of
gentrification and that's something that
I think about a lot and I think
development of course is important and I
want to definitely improve the quality
of life for the people who already live
in this neighborhood and work in this
neighborhood and that businesses in this
neighborhood but at the same time it can
be misinterpreted as me being an
advocate for gentrification and I've
already had people express those
concerns to me I feel like the work I'm
doing now it's just way more rewarding
than a career as a typical urban planner
because it has that human component so
like a big part of my job is just going
out talking to the business owners on a
daily or weekly basis just checking in
with them learning their story hearing
what they have to say hearing what their
concerns are it's really cool and I like
it a lot now yeah I feel like even
though things didn't work out the way
that I thought they would when I
initially decided that I wanted to
pursue urban planning right now I feel
like I'm in a good place in terms of
career and in terms of future plans I
definitely would love to ultimately work
in international development but I felt
like this is a good place to start you
know in my own
community you see what I can do here see
how I can know people here and then
gradually move into some other things
that's other projects in other places so
I just wanted to end with some tips for
aspiring urban planning professionals
one thing hoxsey has definitely manage
your expectations if you're like me if
you're coming to planning from a good
place with good intentions I'm just
really genuinely wanting to help people
know that the process is not gonna
happen overnight
there is no instant gratification with a
job like urban planning you can make a
plan and then it sits on the shelves for
years before it's actually enacted and
you really see the benefit of the plan
that you contributed to if you're
willing to have patience it can pay off
and be super rewarding listen to the
people that you're intending to serve
don't come in and feel like because you
have this planning background and it's
you know master's degree bachelor's
degree that you know more than the
people who have been living in the
community that you're planning for
include them in the process as much as
you can speeds of people kindly like you
know just normal human decency type of
things you know what I'm saying oh good
work do work with integrity
don't try to harm people through this
process there's a lot of communities
that are on the receiving ends of these
plans have historically been oppressed
through planning and at least for me I
definitely want to change that narrative
be informed to read up a lot read a lot
because the discipline is always
changing I think I'm gonna end it here
thank you guys for watching I hope you
learned something about planning or
about my journey I can do another video
about any aspect of this video that you
would like me to expand on have any
questions of course you can feel free to
leave them in the comment box and I will
turn over this answer thank you for
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