Name: City Planner | How I got my job & where I'm going | Part 2 | Khan Academy
Uploaded: 2020-05-03T06:35:04.000Z
Duration: 10 min 3 s
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Adverbs of degree

Almost all City Planners have a master's degree in city planning,

urban planning, environmental planning, some variation of that name,

but not everyone comes to their masters program with a background or a bachelor's degree in city planning.

Generally the requirement is just that you have to have a bachelor's degree.

A lot of times people do have something related to urban planning as their bachelor's degree.

So, a geography degree, a community development degree,

economics, sociology, environmental science.

These are all things that actually do prepare you for an urban planning graduate program.

The graduate program I attended required that

between our first and second year of grad school that

we complete a two month internship and that was really valuable.

I was able to secure a paid internship at Oregon Metro,

which is Portland, Oregon's Metro Regional Government and I worked on a climate change report there.

Throughout my two years at graduate school

was employed by an organization called the Institute For Environmental Negotiation

and that was the first experience I had with outreach on sea level rise issues.

We worked in coastal Virginia and talked to people about their experiences with coastal flooding.

Those are valuable things to look out for when you look at a graduate program is

what kind of resources do they have to support students, grow, and build their resume before they go into the city planning world.

really two internships that I had during grad school.

I don't think that I would have the job I have today without those experiences.

I had a couple of years after grad school where I was really searching for the right job.

I was offered a fellowship with NOAA in Washington, the state of Washington

because it only paid 32,000 dollars a year and that was just too much for him

to consider leaving a job that he had that was well paying.

even though it would have been working on coastal resiliency issues and that was really hard.

I am fortunate that the organization I worked with throughout grad school offered me a full time job.

So, the Institute for Environmental Negotiation offered me a job

managing a program for environmental leaders in the state of Virginia and it was a really great job.

It was not, however, an urban planning job.

So, it was a lot of like logistics, and coordinating, and

organizing, and finding speakers, et cetera.

I do think that was actually really valuable in the end

because as part of my work as a city planner I, you know,

need to do a little bit of meeting logistics,

workshop preparation, and those kinds of skills that I learned in the year and a half after grad school,

But I saw the job I have today on actually, an online job search platform,

I was typing city planner, city planning technician, resiliency planner,

flooding planner, like all these different terms and

I saw the posting for, it was actually for

a flood resilience city planning technician at the New York City department of City Planning

I was asked to be interviewed for the job, however,

I was in Virginia and the job is in New York and

city governments typically don't fly people out for interviews.

I don't actually know of any, there might be some, though.

They didn't offer to fly me out and I wasn't feeling in a financial position to fly myself up here.

So, I actually interviewed over the phone.

I interviewed once, the first time it went really well,

my boss said really glowing things about me,

I sensed that maybe they were picking between a couple of candidates

because they called for a second interview

which I now know is unusual they typically only have one, one hour, interview session.

I did a follow up, half hour, forty-five minute phone interview

and the following week I was told I didn't get the job.

because I thought, this is my perfect job,

if I can't get my perfect job, what am I?

A couple a days after they told me that I didn't have

the job they called to actually offer me the job.

the other person that they had chosen for the position fell through,

that person already lived in New York City, and so,

I think it was easier for them to offer that person the job

because that person could start right away,

they had met that person face to face, and there was,

I think it's really unfortunate that, it came down to, it almost came down to me

not being able to be there in person for the reason that I didn't get the job.

Governments and non profits typically don't have the budget to fly people out for an interview

if you think this might be your perfect job,

which I'm not sure that there is such a thing,

and that you think you might really enjoy,

The other skill sets that they're looking for are generally a familiarity with ArcGIS

which is a computer software to map data.

City planners also need to be able to understand those maps,

to understand the spacial display of information, you know,

how different information is distributed across neighborhoods and what that means,

what the disparity or change of information means across neighborhoods.

So, that's actually something that almost all City Planners know how to utilize

is this ArcGIS platform or another mapping computer platform.

Typically, as a City Planner, when you're starting out you are trying to find your niche in the world of City Planning.

You're trying to find out really what interests you and what you're good at.

Maybe you're interested in environmental planning,

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City Planner | How I got my job & where I'm going | Part 2 | Khan Academy

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