Ow! That hurt! Or: The Start of Planning School, Year Two

Forgive me Olmsted, for I have sinned. I have strayed. I
have coveted. I have had doubts.

I have thought about kicking urban design to the curb like a
mangy puppy.

I just began my second year as a planning graduate student
at the University of Pennsylvania. Some readers will recall the strange loves
of my first year, or how I learned to stop worrying and love Cherry Hill, N.J.
Since then, in my summer internship I organized a community visioning session
and helped orchestrate a regional infrastructure charrette, while my classmates
alternately drew maps, wandered the streets of Delhi, and hunted moose in
Alaska. (No, Sarah Palin is not a graduate student at Penn.) Although my focus
of study is urban design, thanks to the super-awesome economy, only one-in a
class of 70-of my classmates got an honest-to-goodness urban design internship.
No problem, I thought; I'll do plenty of urban design in the fall semester.

That was before a ton of bricks hit me in the face.

On our very first day, we learned of our upcoming studio: a project
encompassing 20 square miles of the Central and Lower Schuylkill in
Philadelphia-a site that includes Philadelphia International Airport, the
city's historic Navy Yard, acres upon acres of industrial land covered in
gigantic oil refineries, and housing projects we were advised not to go too far
into for fear of crossfire. The site has plenty of amenities too, though: gorgeous
open space comparable to Central Park, headquarters for major international
companies, one of the finest collections of plant life on the Eastern Seaboard.
Sounds challenging but good so far, right?

Then came the bricks.

The studio is a whopping 60 students, three-quarters of them
landscape architects. Who, I've since learned, are completely insane.

We got the syllabus, and honestly, I freaked. At least one
pin-up a week, sometimes two. Up to eighteen hours of class a week. During a
break, one of my Cherry Hill urban design friends and I started making a list
of things we don't know how to do. We weren't finished by the time class was
ready to start up again.

So I thought about switching my concentration. Oh, hello
there, Land Use and Transportation! Doesn't your course load look comparatively
light! What's that, Community/Economic Development? You say you work with lots
of neighborhood groups and CDCs? Why, I love people!

I went to see my adviser, and fortunately, he talked me down
off the ledge. Yes, the class will be challenging, but three things
were
reassuring: 1) The learning experience will be unmatched. Landscape
architects and planners work together all the time in the field, and so
it's absurd that they don't do it more in school. 2) He promised the
schedule will get better-apparently his domestic life wasn't faring any
better
from getting home at 9 p.m. than mine was. And 3) I shouldn't be afraid
to turn
the hose on the landscape architects every now and again. Because they
need it.

So I'm sticking with the studio and with urban design. I
think it'll be a good move. And if not, I hear that in a year come November,
there's a nice job opening in Alaska.