MUPdate: One Month In

After over a six month hiatus, urbanbyline is back! With two announcements. One is that I'm in grad school for urban planning. It's crazy to think that I put this blog together a year ago as way to prepare for my admission applications and now somehow I'm one month into my program for Masters of Urban Planning (aka MUP).

While the program officially started in September, there was a decent amount of pre-work in the summer. We had to learn programs like the Adobe tech stack and R for data analysis and visualization. More importantly, after we scratched the surface of learning we had to put together a mini portfolio highlighting our proficiency (or lack thereof). In a way, the semester so far has just been circling this pedagogy. Learning a technical skillset and trying to apply it to a problem or a topic to further our understanding. In a way, it's refreshing. Learning by doing. Even if it takes hours to move pixels artfully or debug your shit code. Partly because I can tell within five weeks, I've gotten better. It feels exponential which is addicting because progress is rewarding.

The other thing I've loved about school has been the lectures. Already, I've gotten to hear the landscape architect of Little Island speak, the chief of staff of the EPA was on a larger panel around environmental justice, and I got to hear a professor of architecture talk about her research on thermal comfort in the age of climate change. Very few people write the way they speak (if they write at all) so its it feels like an absolute treat to hear from these experts across the disciplines directly.

One month has also me realize with some anxiety that a two year program is not nearly enough time. It's naive romanticism for academia but I could stay here forever. Since I can't (I think) how can I possibly get enough learning done in two years? My schedule feels pretty locked in for next semester so I'm not going to take any classes of my choice till next year. What if I don't feel like I've learned enough of what I want? For example, as much as I want to do a thesis, that's three courses off the table. It feels like I'm in a candy store but only allowed two treats.

And the million dollar question (well more like ~$100 thousand), what am I gonna do after this degree? I know with any enormous question like this I just need to break it down into smaller journeys. Like what kind of internship do you want to do? What kind of research intrigues you? What part of planning did you hate studying? And even after I graduate and get that job (fingers crossed), I know and my track record highlights I can change my mind. Scratch that. I can grow beyond that initial decision.

So that second announcement. I'm gonna try to post more diligently. Try to keep me accountable. Ideally about something I learned in school that week or a question I'm pondering. I'll make it a minimum of 500 words for some structure. Let me know if you want me to write about something in particular.

Finally, huge shout out to Edwin Lim. As one of the readers of this blog but also as the rockstar partner who moved with me to school. He's been supporting me all hours of the day with words of encouragement, homecooked nutritious meals, and providing the best critique sandwiches when it comes to my designs.