Ebikes Research Continues

I met this afternoon with Jennifer Dill to go over the small bit of progress that I made over the break on the Ebikes research. She seemed pleased with what I have added, and we are about to shift from me just doing the literature review to interviewing people about their experience with owning/purchasing an Ebike. I have a few odds and ends to take care of prior to our weekly meeting next week on Thursday.

At this point it's starting to feel like I have developed a bit of a rapport with Jennifer. I was incredibly insecure about the lack of progress that I felt that I was making last term, particularly when I was frustrated with school in general. Now that I have a bit better footing, my confidence in what I am contributing has risen. She went ahead and authorized the tuition remission for the extra three credits on top of the nine that I will get no matter what, so I can't be doing all that badly. I like the experience I have gained, and hope that I can make some money this summer on performing hourly work for the Family Activity Study again.

Meeting with Brian Rankin, City of Bend Planner

Last week I met with Brian Rankin, a Senior Planner for the City of Bend. I met with him to satisfy the interview requirement for USP 559, an ongoing 1-credit course that essentially is an internship experience. I got to learn about Brian's career, how he got to the City of Bend, his educational background, as well as his take on the challenges of being a planner in Bend. We covered far more material then I need for the assignment, which was nice, as well as discussing the prospect of me interning for the city over the summer. Now being that I live in Portland, interning would have to consist of me coming down to Bend two to three days a week for a short period of time, possibly combined with me doing some work from home.

He gave me some interesting food for thought in terms of thinking hard about geography of where I ultimately want to work. Until this point I have taken more of a I will take what I can get mindset rather then thinking of what I really want. I can't forecast where I will want to be, or where Annie will in a year and a half, other then I want to have a decent job within my field. Bend is a great place to live, but as Brian pointed out, the City Council tilts pretty heavily to the right, and there isn't quite the same progressivism as found in Portland. Of course, not many other places are in the same league as Portland. Brian also mentioned that Bend is isolated, and he had a few long stretches of time between jobs because he wanted to stay in the area. This was something that I had already considered, that Bend's location doesn't allow for the same career flexibility as a larger metropolitan area. There's certainly a lot to think about. Brian stressed that above all, an internship allows you to meet people and make contacts in a certain area, so it's really for the best to pick an area that you would want to work.

Adding Transportation Finance to my schedule

I think I have finally settled on a winter term schedule. I had been signed up for Sustainable Transportation, which sounds interesting, but am tentatively going to do it Winter 2012. I had been reluctant to switch over to Transportation Finance because only 6 people were signed up even though it fits my schedule better and didn't have an overwhelming workload judging from the syllabus. My concern with the small class size would be that the class might get cancelled and that I wouldn't get the social interactions I would get otherwise with more students. The second reason I know isn't great, but hey, it's a fringe benefit of being a student. I decided to look at how my schedule would shake out for my whole 2 years in the program, and it was this exercise that showed me that I would have room in my schedule next year to take Sustainable Transportation. Other courses this term that I would like to take Winter term of next year include Land Use Implementation and Regional Economic Development.

Fall term results pending

Thanks to the power of posting assignment grades on Blackboard, I now know that I got an A- in Planning Methods I. I had not been keeping a running tally of my performance to date and had assumed that I would be on track for something lower. I am pleased with this grade, however I feel that it comes with an asterisk given that most of the grade came from group papers - papers where my portions tended to be the weakest and were subjected to heavy editing by my group members. Two of the group members, Joshua and Carlye, tended to take various facets of assignments onto themselves, and that coupled with my sections always being edited made me feel like less of an asset and more of a liability to the group. The impending winter term means new classes, and therefore new groups, and I look forward to a chance to see what working with other groups is like.

As for my Economics class, I ended up with a B, which was what I expected. I kept getting mid-range B's on my assignments, and knew that I didn't do all that well on the final exam, even considering that he was going to curve it. My raw score on the exam was a 77, and Greg curved it to a B+. The exam was tough, but not in the way that my exams were for my Urban Economics class at CCSU. On the note of that previous class, I have somewhat mixed feelings on whether or not I should have waived this course. On one hand, not very much of the lecture material was new to me, on another, I only got a B, and I did get a bit more experience working with U.S. Census data. I did like the professor, and would consider taking additional classes with him if they were more transportation related.

I do not know yet what I got in History & Theory of Planning. My graded coursework thus far has been a mix of B's and B+'s, and I can't imagine what is remaining will be much different.

This quarter was disappointing, so it was good that it was mercifully short compared to the semester system I just came out of. I have already gotten an email from my professor for Regional Planning about a trip we will take up to Seattle in a joint project on High Speed Rail with a class at the University of Washington.

As for next quarter's lineup, here it is right now:

USP 510 - Sustainable Transportation

USP 535 - Planning Methods II

USP 541 - Dynamics of Planning Practice

USP 549 - Regional Planning & Metropolitan Growth Management

Since I know some people taking Travel Demand Modeling, and the fact that it's a useful course to have in general, I am trying to get an override to get into that class. It's full right now and I have sent an email to the professor seeing if he will let me in. I don't know anything about it, so I stand to learn quite a bit. If I do get into that class, then Sustainable Transportation will get the axe.