Tiffany Wu, Environmental Policy & Planning M.S. Candidate
Hi there, my name is Tiffany and I am one of the new Graduate Bloggers this year. I’m a first year MS student in Environmental Policy and Planning and am excited to share a little about myself and my program!
I am from coastal Los Angeles and graduated from Cornell University in 2018. I spent two years working at a climate research lab at UC Berkeley’s Goldman School of Public Policy and knew I wanted to attend graduate school to strengthen my technical skillset in data science and econometrics. A yearlong internship with the Stockholm Environment Institute at their Tallinn, Estonia office cemented my burgeoning interest in GIS and smart cities, which I hope to pursue in depth at Tufts.
During the graduate school application process, I looked into a variety of programs at different institutions, including MS, MPP (public policy) and MSEM (environmental management) programs. I ultimately chose Tufts UEP because I wanted an interdisciplinary program that was well-established and involved working on real-world projects as part of the curriculum. This program is fully accredited by the Planning Accreditation Board and has a unique focus on sustainability and social justice.
The Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning Department (UEP) offers an MA/MS in Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning, a mid-career Master of Public Policy, and an MS in Sustainability. While the core requirements for each program are different, students see each other in elective classes and at campus events. The Planning and Sustainability students also jointly participate in Field Projects during their first spring semester, where student groups partner with community organizations and agencies to come up with a proposal or solution. You can learn more about UEP’s programs from the Practical Visionaries blog (which is run by UEP faculty)!
Getting to learn from professors, policy experts and practitioners in my classes has been a great feature, with some bringing their research and academic expertise, and others their decades of experience in consultancies and design firms. I also liked the smaller cohort sizes at Tufts that I knew would allow me to get to know people better — I would categorize the atmosphere of UEP as friendly, close-knit, and collaborative.
I have only been on campus for a month and a half, but it feels like longer as I already know my way around the buildings well and have gotten to know many of my classmates through our coursework, student organizations, and hanging out. I’m also starting to notice how UEP punches well above its weight and have met alumni in the Greater Boston area and beyond who are doing incredible work in the planning and policy fields. In fact, when I volunteered at the Southern New England Planning Conference in October — Professor Julian Agyeman was the keynote speaker — there were at least two dozen of us who were affiliated with UEP!
I’m looking forward to what these next two years at Tufts may bring and am thrilled to be spending them in the Somerville / Medford / Cambridge area. Thanks for reading!