Masters in Urban/Regional/Spatial/Town Planning

2can

I'm currently in my final year at UCD studying Geography, Planning and Environmental Policy. I hope to do a masters in the planning area and I hope to eventually work as a Town Planner. Can anyone recommend a good Masters course either in Ireland or the UK?

El Siglo

2can wrote: »

I'm currently in my final year at UCD studying Geography, Planning and Environmental Policy. I hope to do a masters in the planning area and I hope to eventually work as a Town Planner. Can anyone recommend a good Masters course either in Ireland or the UK?

Howya 2can, I did that course as well in UCD (the BA GPEP). I suppose Declan Redmond or Derry has floated the idea of doing the MRUP in UCD, am I right? Personally, I wouldn't do the UCD one, it's over priced and too open ended, you never really specialise which is a shame because that's what employers want. There's an MSc in Environmental Planning in QUB which is pretty good the bonus is that you learn the British planning system and this can be beneficial considering the rather precarious jobs market in the Republic. Whatever masters you do, you'll most likely have to do something else afterwards. The jobs market for planners is absolutely fucked to put it lightly. I'm not joking on this, my brother is a qualified town planner and primary school teacher, he's now going to China to teach English. I worked with 3 planners there for the summer doing research, one is doing a PhD in UCD, the other is doing a PhD in Maynooth and the other is going to Germany to teach English. So, even though you might get another year of college, the opportunities are incredibly scarce not unless of course you know somebody in a County Council etc...

The other side of things would be to do a planning masters and then specialise to the balls in something, so urban design, regeneration etc... and then heading off to America/Canada/New Zealand and seeing what comes available. Here's a list of RTPI accredidated courses. The ones you should look for really are; Newcastle Uni, QUB, UCL, Uni of Liverpool, and Strathclyde. These are pretty well regarded courses from what I've read about.

2can

Ok. The planning industry really is looking poor but surely it will pick up, no? Planning is where my real interest lies, should I allow the recession to determine the postgraduate i choose? However I really don't want to be signing onto the doll when i graduate!

El Siglo

I sent a pm to you last night.

Mr Yellow

Try looking at UCC website. Got a fried of sorts doing a masters in town planning there.. As El Siglo already states, jobs will be very scarce in this in this country esp.

Docnic

Ok I'm after graduating from DIT (big mistake don't go near the place! great lecturers but everything else is terrible.) and out of a class of 40 only 1 person got a planning related job and that was in england. Trust me there is no future in town planning in Ireland. Sounds depressing doesn't it

Mr Yellow

Im actually looking at a course in DIT - msc in energy mgt. Sorry to drag thread off topic.

Info noted Doc nic

2can

Hold on a second! How can you say there is no future in Town Planning. It is still an essential profession that will always be needed. A recession doesn't last forever.

El Siglo

2can wrote: »

Hold on a second! How can you say there is no future in Town Planning.

Well the fact of the matter is, the government supported or allowed to continue a low interest, credit fuelled housing bubble. What this means, like all market bubbles, there is huge growth with absolutely no supporting infrastructure (remember the dot com bubble of 00/01? remember how there was a shortage of IT Specialists, Computer Programmers etc...?). Well the exact same thing happened in Ireland, this has all been noted from an early stage, Bacon 1 and Bacon 2 reports, which said we're having huge housing growth, no supporting infrastructure (this particularly focussed on planning). Then we get the Planning and Development Act (2000) as ammended 2002. Essentially, planning became a profession in this country intent on working with housing development, capitalising on housing development, be it for local authority planner working to get part V in a development or a private planner working to get his or her tower built, planning was tied into the housing bubble, which isn't good in fact it's detrimental and unsustainable.
So with this, we see a plethora of courses rise, Quantity Surveying, Civil Engineering and indeed Planning. What happened was the bubble grew too fast, government, society even education couldn't keep up with it. We went from having almost no planners in the 90s early 00s to dozens graduating each year since 2001/02. What has happened is, the housing market has contracted vastly, the employment market is now over supplied with planners, civil engineers etc... with this no jobs. We've land zoned for development for the next 40 years, house completions according to home bond for 2009 were below 3,500 (remember 2007, circa 90,000 houses). This will continue to fall as well, so essentially when construction stops, we can't plan anymore. It will be at least and this is no joke or pessimism on my part at least a decade before we recover and planning returns to some of its former glory.
Meanwhile we're going to have to contend with the problems incurred by poor planning, by unscrupulous developers etc... this employment activity is a little unknown to say the least. The government is banking on overall global economic recovery before we start seeing the necessary credit to fuel our economy. This is wishfull thinking to say the least.
So what we're left with is: over supply of planners, over supply of housing, no cheap credit, the government heavily in debt, massive problems associated with the Celtic Tiger and no money to fix them, add this up and it means planning is absolutely fucked in this country.

It is still an essential profession that will always be needed. A recession doesn't last forever.

Recessions don't last forever, but we're not in a recession, we're in a depression. Think about like this, independent in 1922, we had high economic growth in the 1960s, even higher economic growth in the 1990s. Now ask yourself this one question: What happened in between? We have a political economy that is absolutely found upon 'boom-bust' cycles, we don't have a stable economy with the exception of tourism and farming. Everything else is pretty haphazard. Planning is always needed, it's just not needed in Ireland for at least another decade.

If you want to survive as a planner, you either:
specialise and become the most proficient in your field (this is crucial with regards climate change etc...) or,
you get out of the country and pray to God Canada/Oz/NZ give you a visa.

Planners will always be needed, just not now it seems.

Rowley Birkin QC

I graduated this year with a first in Planning from DIT and couldn't even get an interview. Working in Amsterdam at the minute in a pub, putting money together for a MSc. in GIS and Remote Sensing.

If I was you I'd honestly try to diversify, at the moment in Ireland Planning is a dead duck, despite the fact that now is the time the government should be investing heavily in future plans.

Docnic

Rowley Birkin QC wrote: »

I graduated this year with a first in Planning from DIT and couldn't even get an interview. Working in Amsterdam at the minute in a pub, putting money together for a MSc. in GIS and Remote Sensing.

Its not Kev is it??

Yeah my policy is to stay away from DIT forever! Its a complete mess and will only leave you completely frustrated. Trust me they would nearly have to pay YOU to put up with the stuff they pull.

Upon graduation, regardless of how much experience you garner along the way, you are classified as a graduate planner. Unless you get a position you cannot get the experience to become an 'assistant planner', 'senior planner' etc etc. Until you gain this experience you are still classified as a graduate planner.
So if you wait the 10 or so years required to generate demand for planners again, you will be competing with 10 years worth of planning graduates (which at a average turn out of 60 - 100 per year means 600 - 1000 planners...give or take) all going for graduate planner positions. There is also the possibility that by that time you could be 'over qualified' for the job but still under qualified for a better position. I might be pessimistic but thats my opinion.

Mimojo

Hi all,

Just stumbled across your comments. I have to completely agree with everything that is being said here. I am a qualified town planner, i did the one year masters at qub, and working in the UK for about a year and a half before returning to Ireland and worked for about a year and a half. I am now unemployed and there is literally NO hope of getting a job in planning here for a very long time. There is very very little going in the UK now, and from what I have heard less and less in Oz, Canada etc.

The vast majority of the people that I went to college with are now unemployed, working in a completely different sector or abroad working or travelling. I have lost all hope of getting a job in planning, and am trying to figure out what to do next.

There will be no planning jobs in this country for a very VERY long time. I would highly suggest taking a different career path. I have spend a lot of time and money getting to where I am, and I am now unemployed with very little prospects without retraining...please dont make the same mistake!

EKucd

Would that be the MSc in Sustainable development.... that is something which I am considering applying for

Larrykay

I'm thinking of applying to the Masters in Regional and Urban Planning course in UCD but reading some of the comments here it is putting me off somewhat. Has anyone here done this specific course and how did they find it? If there are no jobs here then are there jobs in England in planning and if so is this course any good to this end? Any help appreciated.

Rowley Birkin QC

Docnic wrote: »

Its not Kev is it??

Yup. :pac:

Bizarrely I've been offered two planning jobs in the last two days having only had one planning interview in the last two years. Both with Donegal CoCo and through the WPP (€188 p/w 9 month contract). One of them was a strictly planning job and the other was a planning/GIS gig.

Mimojo

Rowley Birkin QC wrote: »

Yup. :pac:

Bizarrely I've been offered two planning jobs in the last two days having only had one planning interview in the last two years. Both with Donegal CoCo and through the WPP (€188 p/w 9 month contract). One of them was a strictly planning job and the other was a planning/GIS gig.

Thats good news Rowley, hope it all works out for you, least it is experience on your CV if nothing else. Are you near the CoCo so you wont have to spend too much on travel? Was the job advertised by the way?

Rowley Birkin QC

Mimojo wrote: »

Thats good news Rowley, hope it all works out for you, least it is experience on your CV if nothing else. Are you near the CoCo so you wont have to spend too much on travel? Was the job advertised by the way?

I turned down both due to landing another gig in the private sector, not planning related.

I would love to have taken them up but I simply could not get motivated to move to the opposite end of the country, literally Cork to Donegal, and work a full week to the best of my abilities for such a ridiculously small sum of money, roughly €4.80 p/hour based on a 39 hour week. Life is quite simply too short. If I was from the area and could live at home rent free it might have been different but in all likelihood it would have cost me money to take up the position for nine months.

One was advertised through the FAS site but I think they passed on my details to the other dept. for the other job. I'm not too sure to be honest.

Mimojo

Rowley Birkin QC wrote: »

I turned down both due to landing another gig in the private sector, not planning related.

I would love to have taken them up but I simply could not get motivated to move to the opposite end of the country, literally Cork to Donegal, and work a full week to the best of my abilities for such a ridiculously small sum of money, roughly €4.80 p/hour based on a 39 hour week. Life is quite simply too short. If I was from the area and could live at home rent free it might have been different but in all likelihood it would have cost me money to take up the position for nine months.

One was advertised through the FAS site but I think they passed on my details to the other dept. for the other job. I'm not too sure to be honest.

Great you have sorted out another job.

I really dont blame you - If the job had been in your home town & you could have lived rent free then there would have been some incentive to take it, but like you said moving across the county it would have cost you a fortune to take the job. And €4.80 p/h really gives no incentive at all. If they need a planner then why not pay them a decent wage as a graduate planner? I think this WPP can be seen more as a hinderance than a help, it is killing planning even more!

I have been out of planning now almost a year & a half, with no sign of anything coming up for a long time. I am working at the moment so glad of that at least, even though it is a million miles from where I had hoped to be at this stage! Thinking of retraining, but have no idea what in!

Very best of luck in your new job, I hope it all works out for you

Larrykay

Are there planning jobs in England lads?

Kildare787

I am just doing my thesis at the minute for this course and my god if you are thinking of doing it dont..... its a fukin joke of a course way to broad... loads of team projects which sounds great but then you get a ****e grade for others doing nothing..... course is way too general... some of lecturers are sound, Derry, Declan but generally the biggest waste of 8000 euro i could have ever spent... I deeply regret doing this course... its no wonder they have changed the name of the course for next year...

El Siglo

pj12332 wrote: »

I am just doing my thesis at the minute for this course and my god if you are thinking of doing it dont..... its a fukin joke of a course way to broad... loads of team projects which sounds great but then you get a ****e grade for others doing nothing..... course is way too general... some of lecturers are sound, Derry, Declan but generally the biggest waste of 8000 euro i could have ever spent... I deeply regret doing this course... its no wonder they have changed the name of the course for next year...

What have they changed the name of the course to?

The Green Man

Hi everyone,
Fairly depressing reading alright. Just finished an ma in urban planning and not getting many bites at all. I have a msc in coastal management from 15 yrs ago before I went travelling but was banking on the recently finished m.a to get work, which doesn't seem forthcoming.

I'm thinking of doing a computer course that would help give me the edge in a planning/ coastal management role. Does anyone know of any decent short computer course that you would recommend? Online would nearly be better but I'm interested in hearing of any. There is a good G.I.S course in UCC but it's a msc and I'm not sure if I want to dive into another one, although I might have to yet.

All The best

cianoc07

Evening all,

So ive read everynes messages on this topic! A little saddened to say the least. I have done Construction Management and Engineering worked on two different large sites and road project. Want a change maybe something more structured with a base rather than 4 months here 8 months there all over the country.

So was looking at doing a masters in either one of the following
1)Planning
2)Environmental
3) energy/facilites management

What does a career in planning look like today?? are there many jobs???
What would be your advice for me

Kildare787

I've and undergraduate and masters degree in planning. I was unable to get work experience in college as they did not offer it as part of the course and I was working in my spare time. I graduated in the middle of the recession (from my masters in 2011). There were ZERO jobs, could not even get in anywhere to work for free as there was an embargo in the public sector and all private planning consultancies were downsizing or folding. Now I have decided to re skill. If you talk to a lot of planners you will find out that a lot do not end up in planning related roles. I did the undergrad and masters in UCD and they were very general and a lot of employers in other fields are often stumped when I try to explain what a planner does and what I can bring to another company that is not planning related.

On the positive side of things, things do seem to be looking up in general terms, if you went in and did a year or two course there will most likely be opportunities by the time you finish. At the moment I have began to see some planning jobs after about 3 years of nothing. However the vast majority of these in Ireland require experience which I never got. After talking to a planner who runs his own consultancy recently he told me out straight that what you learn in college and what you actually do on the ground in a private planning consultancy are night and day. If you are going to go ahead and do a course I would recommend that you ensure you organise some work experience while you are studying. I have given up the ghost as I have been out of college since 2011 and have forgot most of what I have learned. If I could do it all over again I would think strongly about doing a more practical course or something that is not so reliant on the construction industry which has been a disaster over the last 5 years.

I hope this info is of use to you.