Why I am getting my master's

My thoughts drifted to graduate school early on during my academic career at Central Connecticut State University. I was in complete control of my classes and on track to earn my first 4.0 grade point average since 7th grade, which was 1997. With this achievement came a corresponding rise in my confidence, leading me to think that, you know what, I could do alright in graduate school. My interest in graduate school was two-fold; the first reason is that in urban planning, my prospective profession, it is expected to get a Master's degree at some point, and the other was a chance to really sink my teeth into in depth issues in city development. The undergraduate courses I have taken seemed to just skim the surface and leave out so many important details that I wanted to know about. Admittedly, another reason I wanted to do a Master's degree was personal pride since I believe that if I can do more, then I should do more.

Within most urban planning programs there are multiple focuses available so that students can tailor their studies to their interests. For me, I am particularly interested in transportation planning, especially as it pertains to making cities more livable and vibrant. Now, this is not to be confused with Civil Engineering, where the emphasis is more upon raw numbers and such things as calculating turning radii of highway off ramps. My interest is in making transportation work for real people since the quality of it can have a huge impact on a person's quality of life. Just ask somebody that routinely sits in traffic each day on the way to and from work.