Master of Community Planning (M.C.P.)

Degree Requirements | Required Courses | Spread Course Areas | Suggested Course Plans | Areas of Specialization | Specialization Course Options | Final Paper

Required Courses

The curriculum of the MCP degree is designed to produce alumni who are “generalists” but who also have a specialization in a particular field of planning. Four of the required courses provide students with the general knowledge and skills that can be applied to any planning context. Those courses, which full-time students take in their first year, are:

URSP 600 – Research Design;
URSP 601 – Research Methods;
URSP 604 – Planning Process; and
URSP 605 – Planning History and Theory

Other required courses are in what we call “spread” course areas. The three course areas are: physical planning; economic planning; and social planning. The spread courses areas, and the classes that satisfy each one, are the following:

Physical Planning: URSP 603 – Land Use Planning;
Economic Planning: URSP 606 – Microeconomics of Planning and Public Policy; and
Social Planning: Either URSP 673 – Social Planning, or URSP 662 – Urban and Regional Planning in Developing Countries

The third category of required courses are considered “capstone” classes, taken after a student has completed at least 24 credits, including URSP 600, 601, 604 and 605. These classes provide experiential learning, and consist of the following:

URSP 708 – Community Planning Studio; and
URSP 709 – Internship.