Policy vs Design

[Planner15]

In a lot of the threads on this forum, I see a lot of people talking about some programs are more policy focused where as other programs are more designed focused. Some programs, like Columbia, get called academic (arn't all programs academic? ). For the life, I cant figure out what exactly this entails. I understand that design is more related to architecture and imagine it as being artistic and with an emphasis on drawing. Meanwhile, I imagine policy classes as being similar to econ or soc classes in College. Am I off base here?

What can I expect my classes to be like in a policy focused school vs a design focused school vs an academic school? I should say that transportation and GIS are my main interests, is one type of school better suited for that?

[Vancity]

Agreed upon confusion. Which type of school is more likely to land you a job? I hear a lot about policy schools churning out students who are clueless as to workplace functions/technical skills ect.

[Raf]

Policy schools will teach urban design and planning principles that you will use in your career. In theory it teaches you how to implement ordinances, craft policies and laws to guide and develop growth. A great example would be policies to encourage mixed use developments. It would read something like this:

"The insert comp plan envisions a compact, mixed-use development in the downtown core. To achieve this, a mixed-use land use designation and correspoding zoning district shall be incorporated."

From there you craft up a uses and zoning regulations. Easy huh?

A design focus will teach you the same thing, except well teach you how to take what you said on paper and visualize it through the implementation of land use concepts, conceptual sketches, before and after imagery, as well as aid in crafting the right zoning regulations because you should be taught a sense of scale for development, i.e. when and how to implement height for a development, proper setbacks for items such as PUEs, take into consideration outside factors in your vision such as fire safety, etc.

Each path will lead you to a different career. A design focus will undoubtedly lead you to working in the private sector the majority of times. 90% of the time the public sector will be a waste of talent if you are a good designer simply because the public sector does in general more plan reviewing than plan creation, unless your an agency is an outfit that likes to do many things in house.

A policy focus will lead you do a path of either public or private, siding more public than private sector work. What's best? I dunno. Being in a design tract imo gives you a sense of "doing something" ie your actually changing the built enviornment, leaving your mark, however employment opportunities can be sparse, and competition is fierce because a landscape architect can probably do a better job than you and have you seen the employment rate for recent grads in arch and other similar fields? A whopping 14%.

A policy track can be no better, unless it is specialized in a field such as environmental sciences and you can live off the fruit and manana that bloated governments like the State of California provides for such planners.

In any case choose what you think is the best fit for you. If not you will crash and burn pretty quick there maverick.