Two more weeks of Year 1

Somehow or another, I am almost there on year one of the Master of Urban & Regional Planning program at Portland State University. Looking back at all the homework, projects, papers, readings (well, the ones I did) and it seems like a lot more than a year has transpired. The pace though has been quite a rush and nowhere in any of my three terms did I get anything resembling an easing in period like I did on the semester system at Central Connecticut State University.

Here's the sorts of projects that I have remaining:

-GIS project on whether or not the paratransit bus service in this region is adequately distributing buses to meet the demands. Spoiler alert, they aren't and need to be reallocated away from the central garage

-A faux transportation policy memo on recommending toll roads to a new state legislator. This is an interesting case because Oregonians aren't used to tolls, so the acceptance level of tolls may not be great, even though it operates under the very libertarian principle that you pay for what you use.

-A paper for Transportation Economics that compares bus rapid transit, i.e. the New Britain-Hartford Busway to light rail. I haven't gotten too much work done on this, but I already know that the conclusion will be that it's not really a direct comparison and that BRT is better for smaller and more dispersed metropolitan areas.

-A group project for my Design Analysis class in which we recommend ways that the Hollywood neighborhood in Portland can densify. I appreciate the value of good designs and what will likely be the slick product that my team puts together however I wish that those sorts of things came more naturally to me.

Intermixed with all of this are three final exams, my continuing efforts to secure a local internship that is paid in addition to the gig I have lined up with the City of Bend and a very welcome Memorial Day Weekend trip with Annie to see my mom.

As a brief note on the professional front, I met with a planner for David Evans and Associates and got the impression that I'll be seriously considered for a forthcoming internship. The purpose of the meeting was an informational interview, to find out more about what he did and what DEA does but the questions and course of the conversation felt a lot more like an actual interview for a job.

My hope is that I'll hear from him in a couple of weeks and that it turns out that they have something. For the long term, my feeling is that I will be in better shape to get an additional local internship, particularly if it's for a firm or agency that I would ultimately like to work for.