Career Change

[lockmat]

I graduated in May of 2005 with a degree in Liberal Studies. The reason I chose that major was because I didn't know what I wanted to do and it was the broadest degree available.

I've grown up in the Houston (Spring) area and have always been in love with the city. I have a great desire to see this city change for the better. It wasn't until I found this website that I found out that I could actually get paid to do it. I'm very interested in the future of Urban development, city planning, transit and even architecture.

I know I'm being somewhat broad with my interests, but I was wondering if someone who works in these industries could lead me in the right direction.

I moved to Albuquerque in February to take a positon with their Triple-A baseball team but want to move back to Houston. I know I'll have to go back to school if I want to do something like this and am more than willing to.

Any kind of help and information on what I need to do would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you in advance.

[TheNiche]

Any kind of help and information on what I need to do would be greatly appreciated.

Among the places close to Houston, A&M is probably the best school for careers in real estate and urban planning. I personally also like their professional orientation within their college of architecture, though some on this forum vehemently disagree with my stance.

At UH, degrees in economics, finance, political science, or civil/structural engineering probably orient you in the right direction. I've got degrees in the first two. UH's architecture program is modeled after an art school; I took a couple of courses there to try it out, but they were more interesting than useful, IMO. If you do poly sci., be sure to pair it with one of the others.

[mrfootball]

A&M is probably the best school for careers in real estate and urban planning.

Well. That explains it.

Edited December 11, 2006 by mrfootball

[TheNiche]

Well. That explains it.

I know what you're trying to get at, but believe it or not, the folks who come out of A&M are actually pretty ideologically diverse. Not but last week, I got ranted to by an ex-Aggie associate of mine that was reading some of my posts on here and strongly disagreed with me.

[new major on the block]

Many have talked about Rice and UH and A&M's architecture schools but I would have to throw in PV as a possible sleeper cell in architecture. I have seen their work and it is very impressive. The students sometimes get critiqued by the architect who designed their architecture building, FAIA Michael Rotundi, of ROTO Architects out of california. So this broadens your choice of schools a little bit. And I am sure it is not as expensive as Rice or the others to go there.

Edited December 14, 2006 by new major on the block

[TheNiche]

Many have talked about Rice and UH and A&M's architecture schools but I would have to throw in PV as a possible sleeper cell in architecture. I have seen their work and it is very impressive. The students sometimes get critiqued by the architect who designed their architecture building, AIAS Michael Rotundi, of ROTO Architects out of california. So this broadens your choice of schools a little bit. And I am sure it is not as expensive as Rice or the others to go there.

Good point. It's easy to forget about them, but they do have a good urban planning program.

[Original Timmy Chan's]

I believe TSU offers a master's degree in urban planning.

[lockmat]

Thanks for all the information y'all.

But does anyone know something about the Master's programs in Texas in Urban Planning?

I know A&M, UT and I think UT Dallas have programs in it.