B Planning (2 Viewers)

[Albert K. Holic]

Does anyone do this degree?

My questions: what does it involve, is it enjoyable, what are the employment rates for graduates?

 

[CMJ]

hey,

I do this degree, just finished first year. The degree involves 5 years of study with one year of practical experience included in that. The first years subjects are all required part of the program but cover a broad range of topics like environmental processes, sociology, urban design, local planning, quantitative methods, geographical informations systems etc. From 2nd year onwards you can then choose electives and general education subjects.

There is a fair bit of work involved with a mix of group projects and individual assignments and some exams but on the whole the experience was enjoyable.

I'm not totally sure about exact employment rates, but the degree is well recognised and there are quite good job prospects.

If you haven't already seen this site, but it has a lot more info about the degree.
http://www.fbe.unsw.edu.au/degrees/BPlan/

 

[Bennyboy123456]

hey
im looking at doing this course as well... i was just wondering how much workload do you actually get? and wat were your working hours each week? do u reccomend this course?

 

[CMJ]

hey,

Generally, the workload can be quite high, particularly at the end of the semester where many assigments are due, but you do get a lot of satisfaction out of doing good work. The most time consuming assignments are usually the group projects, but a good thing is that if there are any end of session exams they're not worth a huge percentage of the course assessment.

In first semester, there was about 20 contact hours (5 days a week) while in second semester about 15 hours (4 days a week). From second year onwards with electives, there is more flexibility in the timetable.

I definitely do recommend this course for people who have a broad range of interests particularly in social science, the environment and designing and developing plans for towns and cities. Also a good feature is the one year of work experience that you do in third and fourth year, which really gives a good pratical angle to the degree.

cheers, cmj.

 

[Bennyboy123456]

ahk cool... so its about 4 hours each day? were your times usually in the day ... eg 9-1? do you know much about doing double degrees? do they accept a large group?
-cheers

 

[CMJ]

There is definitely a huge demand for planners out there, at the moment there is a big shortage of planners with an estimated vacancy rate of 16% in the profession, which means there are great job opportunities available.

Depending if you have one or two subjects a day, generally there was about 3 to 4 hours of class a day. In semester 1, there were 3 blocks of afternoon classes which generally finished no later than 5:30pm, about two classes started at 9am in the morning. Semester 2 was different, where there more morning/day classes and friday was the day off.

There are some but not many double degree options with the main one being planning/law which you can enter into from first year or after completing one year in degree but with a distinction average. The other options: environmental management and urban design are only available in the latter years of degree. Here's a link to the webpage about double degrees:

http://www.fbe.unsw.edu.au/degrees/BPlan/combined/

The degree allows a maximum of 60 students to enrol, this year was the largest group they had for years with 56 students enrolled compared to other years which averaged about 40-45. It is about a 50/50 split of male and females in the course.

cheers cmj.

 

[Bennyboy123456]

thanks heaps for that CMJ. very helpful and interesting. so there was only 56 accepted into that course this year? thanks for the info, if you have anything else that would be of help or interest please post.

 

[CMJ]

no problems, in semester 1 there were 58 students but two left before semester 2 started, so basically the degree's capacity was pretty much full this year. From what i know, not many people from first year are planning to leave, maybe a handful at most. I think the large increase in numbers compared to the other years, could be due to fact that the uai decreased by around 2 from the year before. I'm not sure what the trend for the uai would be this year, could go up again slightly, don't really know.

 

[mr EaZy]

wow! didnt realise "planning" was such a big thing, and with lots of vacancies!

 

[petra]

hey benny boy are u planning to do planning? cos so am i

 

[Bennyboy123456]

yeh i am... whats ur name??? where ya from and why r u choosing B planning

 

[Craig]

I'm doing B Development Studies at Newcastle Uni, which is very similar to B Planning. According to the Grads Online Site (www.gradsonline.edu.au) Urban and Regional Planning has a job rate of 93.2%, with a median starting salary of $40000. Pretty impressive.

 

[Craig]

But B Development Studies doesn't give you accreditation, does it?

I'm hoping for a combined Urban and Regional Planning with B Natural resources at UNE. Anyone know what this is like?

Yeah that’s right; however there are apparently a few things that I can do that will give me accreditation, well so the professors at Newcastle told me.

 

[supercharged]

There might be high demand for planners once you have graduated, however in order to graduate you have to do a year of full time work experience. This can be pretty damn competitive considering there are about 50 students and perhaps at most, 30 positions available in Sydney per year, as each council or private consultants only have 1/2 positions available each year. I have heard of students resorting to a year of unpaid work to fulfill this job requirement

 

[Bennyboy123456]

so who got into this course at UNSW? if so who r ya?

 

[Bennyboy123456]

so who got into this course? what are the times each week?

 

[CMJ]

Hey Bennyboy, congratulations on getting into planning for 2005!

 

[Bennyboy123456]

does anyone have their timetable yet? because i looked at mine and it only has lectures on it... is that normal... does someone have their B planning timetable that i oculd maybe ocmpare with...?

 

[CMJ]

Hey,

From my experience last year, only the lectures were shown on the timetable. Normally you find out at the first lecture the lab times that are available and allocations for subjects like GEOS1701 and GEOH2801 etc.

 

[Josie]

Assuming it's faculty wide... I don't get my arch tutes until uni starts.