Joint master's degree, Health Management and Policy/Urban and Regional Planning M.A.
1999
I'm working on a joint degree because I plan to go into health planning. I'd like to be responsible for managing community access to health care. For example, if people are going to emergency rooms for primary care because there is no primary care available elsewhere, then we would do a health needs survey and identify the need for a primary care clinic with a primary care physician and nurse and an obstetrician-gynecologist.
In a time of managed care, we need to be creative and use innovative methods to do this work. My undergraduate degree was in marketing, which will help in that respect.
For the next two years after graduation, I'll be at Johns Hopkins on a health planning administration fellowship.
Urban and Regional Planning is a great program, and it only enhances Health Management and Policy. It gives a broader perspective to use in dealing with populations and communities. Certain tools from Urban and Regional Planning can be applied to health planning. For example, we get a firm grounding in economics, and I find it's more difficult for Health Management and Policy majors to grasp the economic concepts. We also learn to survey communities and populations and apply what we learn to programs.
I like the diversity of this department. I like the open door policy of the professors. Our drafting room serves as community space, good for shared work. But the reason I decided to come is that few universities anywhere offer the combination of my two disciplines.
What has interested me most about transportation is that everyone cares about it. Almost everyone drives a car. It's such an important aspect of everything we do. I'd like to advise government agencies on how to design a transportation system to run smoothly, to make our lives more convenient—how to alleviate traffic jams and find ways to have less traffic at critical times.
When I look back, I see I have achieved my objectives, learning more about what I need to do. I don't have everything I need, but after a couple of years on the job, I'll have the tools I need to do it. I have the basic concepts of environmental planning and land use; now I need to see how they work in the real world.
One summer I worked as an intern in the Community Development Department of the city of Maryland Heights, Mo. I did a project involving a neighborhood and financial incentives, and I presented it to City Council. I also have assisted at the Public Policy Center with David Forkenbrock, one of my professors here.
Socially, urban and regional planning students get along well. We don't have classes on Fridays so we go out together on Thursday nights. You see everyone every day.
I became interested in urban and regional planning in my undergraduate years at the University of Wisconsin. I was taking political science and became interested in how cities formed. I took a year off after graduation and looked around. I knew I wanted to be in transportation and in the Midwest, and Iowa seemed to fill the bill.
It has worked out well. I'm really prepared to go into my job as a transportation planner for a consulting firm.
Urban and Regional Planning/Economic Development M.A.
2002
I'd like to be in economic development when I graduate. My goal is to use Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to plan how a city should look. Economic development can attract new industry and organize the basic functions of a city so that it can grow its population. By continuing to attract the right kinds of development, a city can grow in a smart way.
As an undergraduate, I was a geography major at Iowa, so that's how I got into GIS. Urban geography is quite interesting: how cities work, how they function as gatherings of people, how they were built up over the past and the movement of people over space. People are living in deserts in the Southwest where 100 years ago, no one would have thought of living. If you go to Las Vegas, they have greener lawns than Iowa City. All of these things interest me.
I liked the casual atmosphere of this department. As students we are close-knit. We study together and work together in our drafting room. Undergraduate classes have lectures; here, professors are more interested in what you bring to the class. They seem more interested in your ideas than they are in stating theirs. You have to think on your own to do well.
As an intern, I worked for Linn County Auditor's Office using GIS, and the Linn County Planning and Development Office for a second summer. I'd like to work in Cedar Rapids after I graduate in December. Linn County fascinates me because I'm from Des Moines, which doesn't have much industry. Cedar Rapids has a lot of factories and I think that's neat.
Urban and Regional Planning/Housing and Community Development, Economic Development M.S.
1999
I'm going into community development or neighborhood development, which brings together everything I've learned. I'm ready to get out on my own, and I feel very prepared for the "real world" after my time here. I had two internships while I was at Iowa, working for two years for a county planning and zoning department and for one year for a city economic development department. I'd say the internships taught me equally as much as the classroom. I'll remember two things about Urban and Regional Planning:
The faculty's individual attention, because our department is small. I had gone to a small college for undergraduate studies and I was afraid I'd be lost at the huge university. However, faculty members urged us to contact them whenever we needed.
The support that students give each other. Group work is encouraged and if one member is struggling, the others rally to help. Some of our first-semester classes are challenging in workload and content, so those who grasped it more easily helped those who didn't. It isn't defined, it just happens.
Urban and Regional Planning isn't well known as a discipline. I wish I'd known about it as an undergraduate, so I could have done some things differently.
Katina Lewis
I'm working on a joint degree because I plan to go into health planning. I'd like to be responsible for managing community access to health care. For example, if people are going to emergency rooms for primary care because there is no primary care available elsewhere, then we would do a health needs survey and identify the need for a primary care clinic with a primary care physician and nurse and an obstetrician-gynecologist.
In a time of managed care, we need to be creative and use innovative methods to do this work. My undergraduate degree was in marketing, which will help in that respect.
For the next two years after graduation, I'll be at Johns Hopkins on a health planning administration fellowship.
Urban and Regional Planning is a great program, and it only enhances Health Management and Policy. It gives a broader perspective to use in dealing with populations and communities. Certain tools from Urban and Regional Planning can be applied to health planning. For example, we get a firm grounding in economics, and I find it's more difficult for Health Management and Policy majors to grasp the economic concepts. We also learn to survey communities and populations and apply what we learn to programs.
I like the diversity of this department. I like the open door policy of the professors. Our drafting room serves as community space, good for shared work. But the reason I decided to come is that few universities anywhere offer the combination of my two disciplines.
Ben Goldsworthy
What has interested me most about transportation is that everyone cares about it. Almost everyone drives a car. It's such an important aspect of everything we do. I'd like to advise government agencies on how to design a transportation system to run smoothly, to make our lives more convenient—how to alleviate traffic jams and find ways to have less traffic at critical times.
When I look back, I see I have achieved my objectives, learning more about what I need to do. I don't have everything I need, but after a couple of years on the job, I'll have the tools I need to do it. I have the basic concepts of environmental planning and land use; now I need to see how they work in the real world.
One summer I worked as an intern in the Community Development Department of the city of Maryland Heights, Mo. I did a project involving a neighborhood and financial incentives, and I presented it to City Council. I also have assisted at the Public Policy Center with David Forkenbrock, one of my professors here.
Socially, urban and regional planning students get along well. We don't have classes on Fridays so we go out together on Thursday nights. You see everyone every day.
I became interested in urban and regional planning in my undergraduate years at the University of Wisconsin. I was taking political science and became interested in how cities formed. I took a year off after graduation and looked around. I knew I wanted to be in transportation and in the Midwest, and Iowa seemed to fill the bill.
It has worked out well. I'm really prepared to go into my job as a transportation planner for a consulting firm.
Jeff O'Brien
I'd like to be in economic development when I graduate. My goal is to use Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to plan how a city should look. Economic development can attract new industry and organize the basic functions of a city so that it can grow its population. By continuing to attract the right kinds of development, a city can grow in a smart way.
As an undergraduate, I was a geography major at Iowa, so that's how I got into GIS. Urban geography is quite interesting: how cities work, how they function as gatherings of people, how they were built up over the past and the movement of people over space. People are living in deserts in the Southwest where 100 years ago, no one would have thought of living. If you go to Las Vegas, they have greener lawns than Iowa City. All of these things interest me.
I liked the casual atmosphere of this department. As students we are close-knit. We study together and work together in our drafting room. Undergraduate classes have lectures; here, professors are more interested in what you bring to the class. They seem more interested in your ideas than they are in stating theirs. You have to think on your own to do well.
As an intern, I worked for Linn County Auditor's Office using GIS, and the Linn County Planning and Development Office for a second summer. I'd like to work in Cedar Rapids after I graduate in December. Linn County fascinates me because I'm from Des Moines, which doesn't have much industry. Cedar Rapids has a lot of factories and I think that's neat.
Bridget Montgomery
I'm going into community development or neighborhood development, which brings together everything I've learned. I'm ready to get out on my own, and I feel very prepared for the "real world" after my time here. I had two internships while I was at Iowa, working for two years for a county planning and zoning department and for one year for a city economic development department. I'd say the internships taught me equally as much as the classroom. I'll remember two things about Urban and Regional Planning:
Urban and Regional Planning isn't well known as a discipline. I wish I'd known about it as an undergraduate, so I could have done some things differently.