The decide which school dr lopez should send his money to thread

So here's the deal. Gotta let them all know by May 1st. YOU DECIDE!

Before people weigh in, lets say that money is no concern at all (i wish it wasn't but I'll cross that bridge later) so that should eliminate the wise-ass answer of "Whichever one gives you the most money"

And I suppose I should explain that I'm heavily favoring UCLA right now, as I was admitted as a geography/urban planning major, which is exactly what I want to do for a career. Now I'm also weary of the "undergrads change their major an avg. of 3 times" song and dance, so if geography didn't work out, I feel UCLA most certainly has enough resources to keep me interested. i.e. it's not just an urban planning school by ANY stretch.

Now there's Wesleyan. I absolutely loved it when I visited, and some of the coolest people I've ever met are Wes alums. To me the small bubble-like atmosphere of a liberal arts college was enticing and wesleyan was the best fit. I also enjoyed the laid-backness of Middletown (it's tiny 40,000 city) as I have lived my life in a small midwestern college town, so moving that vibe to the east coast doesn't seem quite so shocking as suddenly living in Beverly Hills in a city of millions. (should i even worry about this?) However, Wesleyan doesn't have any sort of urban planning program (it only has about 3500 students total, compared to around 6,000 incoming freshman at UCLA)

So for me right now it boils down to

Big state school with tons of options AND urban planning in a large city

Vs.

Small east coast liberal arts college where I would get an excellent education but miss out on big city life and urban planning options

(Reed is a dark horse, another small liberal arts hippy school with like three years of required physical education )

What does the older wiser WATMM hoi polloi have to say?

Who lives in LA? (no thanks weed)

attend/ed any of these schools?

I voted UCLA, I work there and we need your money! But seriously: The other thing is that I also went to college in Bumblefuck Woodsytown, CT (QU in Hamden specifically) and I missed big city life (although I grew up in a big city; so that was probably a factor). Hope that helps! Feel free to ask away about LA/UCLA. edit- or CT!

reed. please work out.

no.

did my undergrad at ucla, now living on the other side of town. the university was pretty good to me, and westwood could be worse.

i'll write more when i wake up tomorrow.

any particular questions?

I'd say go to California, the course is more suited to you and you get to live in a big exciting place.

The school of chenGOD offers accredited education at excellent rates.

please consider.

p.s. we're weed friendly, as in, if you give me weed, I'll be friendly.

lol

i'd go for the two that aren't UCLA, i prefer smaller towns too innit (no idea what the unis themselves are like though lol)

you should hit up somewhere in the UK, you'll probably save money despite being an international student

LOL at asking the internet for advise that could affect the rest of your life.

I voted UCLA because I saw someone wearing a UCLA sweater once.

And it was the one that sounded the most familiar.

  On 4/12/2010 at 4:36 AM, Ominous said:

I voted UCLA, I work there and we need your money!

Hey I worked at the UC for years - what do you do there?

i was *this close* to going to carlton college in minnesota, a small liberal arts school. pretty glad i didnt. i could give a fuck about liberal arts now. it's basically like pinning yourself to academia. barf. stick to urban planning / UCLA. go to some football games while you're at it.

  On 4/12/2010 at 6:08 PM, scones to die for said:

Hey I worked at the UC for years - what do you do there?

I'm working in a biomedical research/clinical lab; just started about 5 months ago actually, but I can see myself staying here for a while! What about you?

Dr. Lopez, I was also thinking: wouldn't studying urban planning in LA be as stimulating as studying Art History in Italy? In those other places, it'd all just be in the books, no?

  On 4/12/2010 at 8:51 PM, Ominous said:

  On 4/12/2010 at 6:08 PM, scones to die for said:

Hey I worked at the UC for years - what do you do there?

 

I'm working in a biomedical research/clinical lab; just started about 5 months ago actually, but I can see myself staying here for a while! What about you?

You are doing something way more interesting. I worked doing administrative crap. It kind of sucked, but the benefits were good! (This was at UCSB.)

yeh it's all about the benefits! until the budget runs out and the cuts, furloughs and all that other crazy stuff comes rolling in!

sorry for the threadjack, Dr. Lopez. Let me add: You'll be hard-pressed to find a more diverse city than LA. You'll have dorm-life AND city life... When I was in college in Connecticut, I enjoyed dorm life for exactly one semester, then it got really old; but I had to endure it for 3 1/2 more years cause that's all that there was! F that.

  On 4/12/2010 at 8:51 PM, Ominous said:

  On 4/12/2010 at 6:08 PM, scones to die for said:

Hey I worked at the UC for years - what do you do there?

 

I'm working in a biomedical research/clinical lab; just started about 5 months ago actually, but I can see myself staying here for a while! What about you?

 

Dr. Lopez, I was also thinking: wouldn't studying urban planning in LA be as stimulating as studying Art History in Italy? In those other places, it'd all just be in the books, no?

This is a very good point and this is why the UP/Geo program at LA is so good. I think the hesitation on my part is my ignorance about city life, and in that way a small liberal arts college with a very close dorm life seemed like it was easier to digest, but I think you're right that the LA city scene would be great too.

Have you been to LA before? It's definitely a love it or hate it type city. I was born there but am not too fond of it.

When you were applying did you ever consider UC Santa Barbara? They have a really good Geography dept. as well. Plus you get to go to school here:

Geography/Urban Planning kind of sounds like a BS major to me, but UCLA is the type of school to do something specialized like that really. How many urban planners do they have at Wesleyan?

And the concept of anyone learning "urban planning" in Portland is uproariously funny unless you want to live in a case study of how to run a city that accomplishes absolutely nothing. You will have no problem scoring heroin though in Portland, and Reed College is the drug capital of schools in oregon.

This is still a very weird collection of choices -- these are really your top three? Have you visited any of them? Have you visited ANY campuses?

There is another school in Portland that actually has an entire urban planning department -- Portland State. http://www.pdx.edu/usp/

Well I most certainly wouldn't do urban planning if I went to Reed, they have a very small selection of majors, and I did say it was the dark horse (as I didn't visit it and there is a slim to zero chance of me actually matriculating)

Why does Urban planning sound like BS major? Compared to an undergrad in Psych? English? Art History? Plus it's in the Geography department at UCLA which requires multiple history/sociology/anthropology courses if you want to focus on social geography. To me its sounds like a great way to cover a lot of disciplines while still having a relatively practical professional outlook that isn't limited to academia. more and more undergrad degrees are becoming less and less important, and because the best UP positions are filled with people who went to grad school for urban planning, it doesn't hurt your chances to have studied it as an undergrad. That is at least my thinking if I take the UCLA option. The other argument is well if the undergrad degree doesn't matter much, and UP is more important in grad school, then go to a small liberal arts college like Wesleyan and do whatever the fuck you want and then do UP later. There are like three classes on urban planning at wesleyan so a much smaller selection, and certainly no major.

and I didn't apply to Reed so I could go to Portland... I picked Reed because I somewhat liked the vibe. And I also got into a bunch of other schools that I didn't list because I wasn't that interested in going. USC, UCSD, Minnesota, Tufts.... And yes I visited them. USC sucked so hard.

lol at thinking urban planning is a BS major.

with the increasing urbanization in the modern world, social urban planning is a huge area to work in.

if you know for sure that you want to do Urban Planning, go to UCLA. Otherwise go to Wesleyan and take the liberal arts undergrad there then go to grad school for something that you've learned to love.