AICP advanced specialty certification

[aspiringplanner]

What is your opinion on the new AICP Advanced Specialty Certifications for both environmental planning and transportation planning?

[aspiringplanner]

I meant APA, not AICP. Oops.

[JNA]

Those adv certs are under AICP.
I believe we had a thread about them already.

[The One]

I think these sub-specialties are not such a good idea......I'm struggling to keep up with the continuing education requirements of AICP and CFM at the same time as it is 48 total hours of continuing ed really ends up being between 8-12 working days of seminar time every two years. Average it out to two full weeks in classes and seminars every two years.

I think I'll get the LEED GA before getting CEP..... Has anyone thought about what all these letters behind our name will look on a letter or business card??

(Insert Planner Name) AICP CEP, LEED XX, CFM...and on and on and on.....

I just confirmed these sub-specialties won't add to the 32 hour requirement:
From the APA/AICP website
"AICP members who earn an ASC designation will be required to comply with Certification Maintenance requirements. A minimum of 10 of the 32 CM required credits per reporting period must be on the topic of transportation or environmental planning."

[luckless pedestrian]

I would have picked other - for me, I am a generalist planner so I do a little of everything which I thought was the point of being a planner - I know the complexities of development require specializations now but not sure why they picked environmental and transportation? why not economic development? or maybe that's next?

I think generally the world has gotten a little acronym happy with LEED certification and now it's the Congress for New Urbanism's turn to have some letters - there won't be room on our business cards for all of this

for me, I will keep my AICP - my day runs the gamut of all those things above and more so for me, a specialization would actually hurt me than help me...

[chocolatechip]

Pointless and useless. Taking advantage of a culture increasingly obsessed with labels and categories--especially youths--and the desire for some type of higher-order distinction. I bet that if you take most people who go after LEED, or say AICP certification, they are doing so mainly for psychological reasons. Of course we would never say that because its a sub-conscious effort to maintain our ego.

[nrschmid]

Pointless and useless. Taking advantage of a culture increasingly obsessed with labels and categories--especially youths--and the desire for some type of higher-order distinction. I bet that if you take most people who go after LEED, or say AICP certification, they are doing so mainly for psychological reasons. Of course we would never say that because its a sub-conscious effort to maintain our ego.

AICP does lend a higher degree of credibility as a profession, although I am a much bigger supporter of professional licensure over certification. I took the LEED-NC exam under the old 2008 system on June 30th of last year after studying 3 months (and that was right after passing the AICP exam in November 2008). LEED tests your ability to apply credits to the most arcane situations. In most cases you follow the rules of the book. However, LEED for planners is really nothing more than a marketing gimmick. Most of the actual paperwork/verification is done by enginers and commissioning authoritities (specialists who determine how functional HVAC systems are). True, there is the LEED-ND, but it is going to be a VERY long time before we even have true projects that will met the minimum certification requirements. I only took the exam because it was the last day to take the exam under the old 2008 system. The LEED-GA + specialized exams are much harder. You would have to drag me out kicking and screaming to bother taking the LEED again. I would rather work towards something more practical such as an economic development certificate. LEED certification (people are accredited) is a very costly process that favors certain methods/vendors over others. For more info, see the LEED thread on areforum.org

As for AICP specializations, I am dead set against it. I practice too many different, unrelated areas of planning simultaneously and I don't want to waste several months of my free time preparing for ANOTHER exam/exams.

[transguy]

Not sure about the environmental side, but requiring eight years for the transportation certification seems potentially problematic. Especially considering ITE has the Professional Transportation Planner certification that only requires 3 years experience. And trying to liken the certification to the medical profession? Seriously people, come on. I have to admit that I’m kind of hoping that this whole effort blows up in their face and fails.

Needless to say, I won’t be pursuing the transportation planning certification.

[aspiringplanner]

Not sure about the environmental side, but requiring eight years for the transportation certification seems potentially problematic. Especially considering ITE has the Professional Transportation Planner certification that only requires 3 years experience. And trying to liken the certification to the medical profession? Seriously people, come on. I have to admit that I’m kind of hoping that this whole effort blows up in their face and fails.

Needless to say, I won’t be pursuing the transportation planning certification.

I wonder if the PTP certification carries more weight than the AICP TP one does. I would think that the Institute of Transportation Engineers is more reputable and respected than APA.

[DetroitPlanner]

I wonder if the PTP certification carries more weight than the AICP TP one does. I would think that the Institute of Transportation Engineers is more reputable and respected than APA.

This has been a question I've had since PTP came out. "Would it be worthwhile to dump AICP and get PTP?"