News from the North

Made it through my first week of classes, and the body count is still relatively low! 

Tuesday was just an orientation. Dean Marilyn Taylor gave a welcome speech then we spent the rest of the morning with our respective programs (Architecture, Landscape Architecture, City Planning, Historic Preservation, and Fine Arts). Within the City Planning group students and faculty introduced themselves and Professor Landis, the department chair, explained registration, required courses, and the available concentrations (Community & Economic Development, Land Use, Public-Private Development, Transportation, and Urban Design). Then we joined the rest of the programs in Houston Hall for lunch. The rest of the afternoon was open sessions about things like career services and financial aid so I ended up going back to the apartment for a little while. 

I came back to campus (in a torrential downpour) that evening for a lecture the school was hosting. William Cobbett is originally from South Africa and is currently the head of the Cities Alliance, a global partnership for urban poverty.  He talked about new ways to address slums in developing countries in the "global south" - places like sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and Asia which are urbanizing much faster than North America and western Europe. He  explained why slums are created and how to formalize them so that the governments can capitalize on their potential. He focused mostly on the role of planners in the situation and not very much on specific examples (which I would have preferred to hear about) but it was still really interesting. 

Wednesday was the first official day of classes. My first class, Introduction to Planning History (required for all first years), was canceled. Professor Eugenie Birch is a apparently really famous in the city planning and was probably out at a conference so I guess I'll let it slide. The next class was Urban Economics. I didn't realize until then how much economics I had learned informally in my engineering classes at Georgia Tech. Utility curves? Production possibilities frontier? Pareto efficiencies? Owned it. My last class was Quantitative Planning Analysis Methods... ew, right? Except it was my favorite class. How typical. Despite the awful name, it's basically a class about the data sources that planners use. We're spending our first week of class on the Census, which is hilarious because that's all I did all summer at my internship. :)

Thursday I only had one class - Introduction to Property Development with Professor Landis. We mostly covered material that I had seen in my Real Estate and Construction Project Management classes, so nothing too scary. Afterwards I went back to the apartment and printed out the MOUNTAIN of articles I have to read for class next week. I tried to get a head start on the reading but ended up taking a 2-hour nap on the couch until Katie came home. Then we drank wine and watched movies until 1am. I'd say it was a productive week. 

Pictures of Campus