Kids & Careers!
Who would you like to meet? • James: a firefighter engineer • Ian: a provincial police officer • Scott: a county police officer • Sean: a city planner • Dave: a senior software engineer • Kathy: a customs manager • Rosie: an international sales manager • David: a process engineer • Drew: a school department head • John: a director of computer services • Steve: a paramedic • Amy: a physical therapist Kidsnewsroom would like you to meet Sean! Below are the questions (Q.)we asked about his career and the answers (A.) he gave us! Q. How old are you? A. I'm 36. Q. In what city do you work? A. I work in Las Vegas, Nevada. Q. What type of company do you work for? A. I work for the city government. Q. What is your job title? A. I'm a City Planner. Q. At what times does your work day begin and end? A. I start work at 7:30 am and finish at 5:30 pm. Q. How many days per week do you work? A. I work 5 days one week and then 4 days the next week; then it starts all over again. I work 9 days every two weeks. Q. What is your office like? A. I work in a cubicle. That's an office area divided by short walls. Each person has their own work area with a desk, phone, computer, and so on. Q. What kind of clothes do you wear to work? A. I usually wear khaki type pants and a button-down shirt. On days when we have meetings, I also wear a coat and tie. Q. Who do you work with? A. About half the time, I work by myself on my own projects. The rest of the time, I work with a team of people from the planning department. Q. Tell us about your education and how it has prepared you for this job. A. I have a bachelor's degree in Geography and a master's degree in Comprehensive Planning. To be a city planner, you need an education that teaches you the relationships between different types of land uses. You need to understand how much residential (homes), commercial (businesses) and industrial land there should be and where it should be located within an area. It is also helpful to take classes in government and public policy to learn how the government works. Q. What should a kid do NOW to prepare for your kind of job in the future? A. If you have an interest in geography, beyond just knowing where things are, study why things are where they are. If you find it interesting that some areas develop and stay nice while others seem to fall apart, or if you wonder why you are stuck in traffic and wonder what can be done about it, you may be interested in city planning. Geography and history classes are important. Geography will teach you how things work together and impact each other. The history classes help you to understand what past planning decisions were not as well decided as they should have been. For instance, living conditions in early industrial cities were not always good partly because the locations of homes, factories and dumping areas were not well planned. History also teaches you about the importance of preserving certain areas. When you are allowing buildings to go up in a city, it is important to plan well so that historic areas can be preserved. Q. Do you have any other advice for kids who are thinking about having your type of career? A. Being a planner is a great career if you want to feel like you are contributing or giving something back to the community. Working for the government will not make you rich, but you can make a good living and get a lot of satisfaction. Q. What skills or subjects are important to your job? A. Along with geography and history, economics, statistics and social studies classes are important because every aspect of the community will be impacted by planning-related decisions. These classes will help you understand the different groups of people and what their needs are. For instance, what do the older people need in their areas? What kinds of transportation do working people need in their areas? It is also important to develop strong public speaking and communication skills because it is often a challenge to get new or difference ideas accepted by either the public or elected officials; you definitely need to be able to express yourself well. An important aspect of planning deals with Geographic Information Systems (GIS), which is basically mapping with computers. If this interests you, take all the computer classes and cartography classes that you can. Q. What are the top ten things that you normally do at work each day? A. 1. Working on annexations. An annexation means bringing property into the city. 2. Working on historic preservation by assisting the historic preservation commission with cataloging or something related to special properties. 3. Working on General Plan Amendments. This requires filling out applications to change the city's plan for certain areas in order to allow more buildings to be built. It also requires research, going to see the properties, and writing reports. 4. Writing special plans for parts of the city that have unique needs or characteristics. For example, we are currently working on taking an older area of Las Vegas where there are two hospitals and converting that area into an entire district of medical uses. 5. Answering phone calls from the public. People are always interested in knowing what is going on with a particular piece of land or what they can do with their property. There is a lot of research involved in answering the public's questions properly. 6. Responding to the city council members' last minute requests for information about certain properties and what can be done with them. 7. Reading and answering important e-mails. 8. That's 9. about 10. it! Thanks, Sean! It was nice getting to know you!