EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT
BECOMING AN URBAN PLANNER
Are your students interested in cites and buildings? Are they fascinated by urban environments and by how people interact with space? Do they excel in technical as well as artistic and humanities skills? Then becoming an Urban Planner might suit their interests. It is in fact a profession that combines both practice and research. Find out more about it with Patricia Molina, an Urban Planner.
Meet Patricia Molina
For this STEM Job Profile, we talked to Patricia Molina, an Urban Planner, Director of City, Territory and the Environment at Tecnalia. As an Urban Planner, Patricia helps cities and territories to deal with environmental, social and economic challenges, using data, technology and innovation to enhance decision-making and public policy. Together with her team, she explores how technology and advanced data analysis can help cities make better decisions and enhance urban environments, taking into account that cities are complex ecosystems.
“The main challenge in my current job is keeping a good balance between a strategic long-term vision and the day-to-day matters regarding management and annual economic results. Also, the management of a very diverse team is challenging, since very different personalities and skills need a different approach and working under time pressure makes it hard to find enough time for each person.”
Curious to find out more about this job? Read about the related skills and scroll down to find and download her career sheet!
SKILLS
Find out the key skills to becoming an Urban Planner.
Analytical
An Urban Planner must be able to read data and infographics to facilitate the planning process and create plans.
Communication
This career requires interacting with stakeholders, working in teams, giving presentations. Therefore, communication and interpersonal skills are very important.
Project Management
Since an Urban Planner usually works on projects and with teams, good project management skills are necessary to manage resources and budget.
Creativity
With creativity urban Planners find alternative solutions to issues in urban areas.
Decision-making
An Urban Planner might have to choose between different strategic plans and solutions according to the community needs and the budget.
Business Acumen
This is a set of skills that involve negotiation, facilitation, mediation and advocacy.
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Advice to take away
“My advice is to follow your passions and build a professional career related to that. We put so much time into our professional lives, that it is worth to be doing something that really matters to you, to have a sense of mission and enjoy it at the same time.”
– Patricia Molina
This Career sheet has been provided by means of the URBANAGE project.
The STE(A)M IT project has received funding from the European Union’s ERASMUS+ programme project STE(A)M IT (Grant agreement 612845-EPP-1-2019-BE-EPPKA3-PI-FORWARD) coordinated by European Schoolnet (EUN). The content of the document is the sole responsibility of the organizer and it does not represent the opinion of the European Commission (EC), and the EC is not responsible for any use that might be made of the information contained.
