This summer, Carolina Planning Master’s students participated in a range of in-person and remote opportunities across the country. This week, we are sharing highlights and reflections from four students.

Jasmine Davidson – MCRP 2024, Land Use & Environmental Planning
Planning Intern, Clarion Associates
Chapel Hill, North Carolina

I began my planning internship at Clarion Associates this summer, where I have worked on a variety of planning and zoning projects. I got to see the many stages of the planning process: from early stakeholder meetings, to comprehensive plan drafting, to incorporating a client’s feedback into the final product. For one of these projects, I collected case studies of rural and suburban communities in North Carolina and Virginia that are implementing the types of changes we were recommending for our client — changes like supporting a range of housing options in growth areas, facilitating building re-use, and connecting street networks. It was a cool project, and a good reminder that plenty of good and interesting planning is happening in small communities — it’s not just the big cities! My experience at Clarion has also been shaped by its size — Clarion is a small firm, so I was able to build strong interpersonal relationships with coworkers at all levels, which has been gratifying. I’m excited to continue working for Clarion this fall!

Jen Farris – MCRP & MPH 2024, Transportation
Public Health Practicum Student & Research Assistant, Orange County Home Preservation Coalition & UNC CH Highway Safety Research Center
Virtual/Chapel Hill, North Carolina

Orange County Home Preservation Coalition: For my public health practicum, I worked with Dr. Ryan Lavalley to conduct a program evaluation for the Orange County Home Preservation Coalition (OCHPC). OCHPC is made up of a group of partner organizations that work together to preserve, repair, and modify homes so homeowners can continue living in them comfortably and safely. The program evaluation will include researching the impacts of weatherization and HVAC retrofits on homeowner health, surveying Coalition service recipients and Coalition partners to understand program strengths and challenges, and integrating a racial equity lens throughout the evaluation.

Highway Safety Research Center: I am supporting a research project exploring nighttime pedestrian injuries and fatalities on urban arterial roadways. This summer, I have been conducting a lit review for who is most at risk of experiencing a serious or fatal pedestrian crash at night.

Lauren Caffe – MCRP 2024, Land Use & Environmental Planning
Project Assistant, FB Environmental Associates
Portland/Camden, Maine

FB Environmental is facilitating a citizen’s advisory committee in Camden, Maine that is working on making recommendations to help with resilience of the local watershed. My role as Project Assistant is to help with public outreach and community engagement by interviewing people in the area to ask what they know or don’t know about the project, their concerns, what they value and would like to see happen, and help explain what the advisory committee is doing. I’ve also been attending the Town and Committee meetings, creating outreach materials such as the monthly newsletter and newspaper releases, organizing events, and helping the Project Managers through this exciting, challenging, and interesting project!

Abby Cover – MCRP 2024, Land Use & Environmental Planning
Student Researcher, UNC CH Highway Safety Research Center
Virtual

This summer I technically worked at two internships: a niche planning internship at a large consulting firm, and student research assistant at HSRC (UNC’s highway safety research center). I made the decision very quickly in my first internship at the consulting firm that I was not a good fit, and began looking for alternatives. The firm’s administrative process was very messy, and the work was so far outside my skillset with minimal support, that I decided I could better spend my time almost anywhere else.

I cold-emailed many places, asking if they had any available internships, since it was already June by the time I decided to leave the large consulting firm. I assumed there would be no more available internships, but I was wrong! I quickly found work with HSRC where I researched the Safe System approach to transit planning, and crafting public facing visualizations.   

Everybody at HSRC could not have been nicer, I recommend anybody interested in transportation planning even a little bit reach out to them for work. If I had gone with my original assumptions while at my original internship, I would have never worked at HSRC. I learned most of all to always advocate for yourself, and never assume what you can otherwise confirm. If you are not happy with your internship, you are not stuck!


Featured image: https://planning.unc.edu/visit-us/