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- Hi there, I'm Dr. Johannes Pieters.
I'm the Program Director for Urban and Regional Planning
at the University of South Australia.
So, I've been working here at UniSA for the last 14 years,
and prior to that I was actually a student here.
I did the Master's of Urban and Regional Planning
and it was a great experience
and it was wonderful to get the
benefit of some great academics
and researchers here at the university.
So, the aim of the Graduate Diploma
and Master of Urban and Regional Planning
is to give students who already have an undergraduate degree
and might be, either wanting to
consolidate their planning skills
or commence a new career in planning
opportunity through tertiary education,
either a one year graduate diploma
or a two year master's to fulfill those requirements
and get those skills
and experience that they need.
There is no stipulation regarding your undergraduate degree.
Clearly, if people have done an undergraduate degree
in a related area,
that's probably going to give them an advantage
but there is no expectation that
the person who gets into their grad dip
or the masters has any previous experience in urban studies
or urban and regional planning.
So, students can study full or part-time
and they can study online for some courses
and can also study at the City West Campus
of the University of South Australia.
Some of the key features of the Master
and Graduate Diploma in Urban and Regional Planning
is that students will get the benefit of
the experience that has been gained over 70 years
in teaching planning at the University of South Australia.
We provide site visits to both metropolitan
and regional areas, so that students
can get hands-on experience in assessing a site
and applying potential land use planning regulations
or policies to areas of importance in terms of policy,
such as urban consolidation, urban regeneration,
master plan communities, in field development
and open-space planning.
Students can also get the experience of
working with academics, who themselves
have international experience for example, in the UK
or the USA,
Europe, South America
and China.
Our students can also get the benefit of
practical work experience
in any of the areas
where planners are working,
which includes local government, the state government
and the private sector,
and students will, of course, get a,
those who do the Masters, will be able to apply
for membership from the Planning Institute of Australia
as an accredited planner.
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I know that students might have questions about
doing the masters or the graduate diploma
and I will be able to answer those questions now.
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Urban and regional planners can be working
at a national scale, at a state scale
or provincial scale depending on the city
or the country that you're living in,
at a metropolitan scale
and at a neighborhood scale.
And what that means is that planners will be developing
or helping to develop policies regarding land uses
and the mix of land uses at each of those different scales
and also
be able to make decisions
or make recommendations to other planning authorities
about what kinds of developments can be approved
that are consistent with those policies
at either a national, state, metropolitan or local level.
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So, the career outcomes for urban and regional planning
start, obviously, at an entry level position
as a town planner, or as somebody working specifically
in development assessment.
However, there are very good career paths
within urban and regional planning,
particularly, in local government.
So, a person can expect to progress to
a senior planning role or a supervision role
right through to a director of a planning department.
And that can be also true within state government employers
and the private sector as well.
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The job market for planners is very good at the moment.
There are around 15,000 planners employed at any one time
in Australia
and
the prospects
in terms of the demand for planners
in the future is also
on the rise.
So, there are very good job prospects.
If you particularly, if you think about
the whole of Australia as a potential place
to start your first job in planning.
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So, planners can work mostly in local government,
that's the predominant destination if you like,
for planners in Australia.
However, planners might start in local government
and then decide that they'd like to work
in the private sector,
or they might like to work in the,
in the state government departments that are responsible for
some of the key land use planning decision-making,
particularly, say environment and water
or roads and other forms of infrastructure.
And it's not unusual for planners to move
in between those three areas
in order to gain experience
and, or just get into an area that they really want to
excel in or make a big contribution to,
as their career unfolds
and as their interests develop.
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Yeah, so, to get into urban and regional planning
at the postgraduate level,
isn't, it doesn't have any particular prerequisites.
And, while there might be
some very basic mathematics involved in
analysis of demographic change
and so on, it's very, very straightforward.
The way to think about urban and regional planning is that
it's drawing on a number of disciplines.
It's drawing on social science,
it's drawing on geography,
it's drawing on environmental science a little bit,
it's drawing on
the ability to visualize
and come up with drawings.
So, urban design is a key feature of planning these days
and going forward in particular.
So, it doesn't require to have any strong methods knowledge
but it's simply the awareness of some basics.
If you have any more questions about the Graduate Diploma
or the Master of Urban and Regional Planning
or would like to apply to get into the programs,
please contact us here at the university.
And we really hope to see you on campus soon.
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