As a self-proclaimed overachieving high school student, Becca set her sights high when she applied to colleges. She was not expecting to be rejected from every school she applied to, especially considering she was an excellent student! As nightmarish as that experience was for her, Becca says it was the catalyst that ended up sending her to the place that was a great fit for her, where she discovered the career path she was meant to pursue. Join us for this conversation as Becca takes us from the suburbs of Chicago, to Canada, to Washington, DC, to New York City, to Jerusalem, and back to Canada along her college, internship, graduate school, and career journey that eventually led her to an enjoyable career in transportation and urban planning. For those who are interested to hear about urban planning, Becca offers insightful explanations and gives helpful advice about this important field.
As a self-proclaimed overachieving high school student, Becca set her sights high when she applied to colleges. She was not expecting to be rejected from every school she applied to, especially considering she was an excellent student! As nightmarish as that experience was for her, Becca says it was the catalyst that ended up sending her to the place that was a great fit for her, where she discovered the career path she was meant to pursue. Join us for this conversation as Becca takes us from the suburbs of Chicago, to Canada, to Washington, DC, to New York City, to Jerusalem, and back to Canada along her college, internship, graduate school, and career journey that eventually led her to an enjoyable career in transportation and urban planning. For those who are interested to hear about urban planning, Becca offers insightful explanations and gives helpful advice about this important field.
Thank you for joining us today on Paths in Progress. I'm your host, Carrie Young. On this podcast, people in a variety of career fields, talk about their journey from choosing their college, deciding which majors and minors to pursue, their first jobs out of college, and all of the hurdles, detours and victories along their path through today. Our goal is to help students hear about a variety of exciting opportunities out there and understand what day-to-day life is like in these careers. I hope you enjoy and learn from our story today. Thanks for listening. Hi everyone. Thanks for joining us today. We are here today with Becca, who is an urban planner. She has her bachelor's degree in psychology and a master's degree in urban planning. Becca, thanks so much for joining us today.
Becca:Thanks for having me. I'm really excited to be here.
Carrie:I'm so happy to have you here. I would love to hear about your journey, and I know that there's a lot of people out there interested in urban planning, so I'm excited to talk about it. Can you take us back to your high school days and talk a little bit about what you were thinking in regards to your major and career path and how you approached looking for colleges?
Becca:Absolutely, and I have a bit of a college story that I'll share here.
Carrie:Oh, okay.
Becca:I took my senior year of high school. I took a psychology class that I loved, and that's why I thought I wanted to be a psychologist. And I think I still have a little bit of a reputation amongst friends and colleagues as the person you come to with a problem or to talk through, you know, a what should I do here? Or was I in the wrong or was it someone else? That kind of thing. Yeah. So I thought I wanted to be a psychologist and I was also one of those overachieving high school students who did a zillion activities and got good grades. When it came to apply to colleges, I applied to kind of an elite set of schools that I thought were the right schools for me and that I had visited and I was excited about. And I was that person who didn't get into any colleges. Which was scary and embarrassing. Oh yeah. Everyone at school was talking about where they were going, and I didn't have anything to say and my family was asking me. It was definitely like the worst case scenario that a college counselor can think of. So I had a lot of a thinking to you about what was I gonna do next? Like, what were the options on the table? So I thought a little bit about taking a year off, and doing an AmeriCorps program, for example. And I thought about what were the schools that I might be able to apply to late or other ways I could take a year off and then reapply the next year. Yeah. And one of the ideas that was proposed from a friend of mine, another student in my high school, was to think about going to McGill University in Montreal. And because it's a Canadian school, their schedule in terms of accepting applications, is a little bit different. And so I spoke with my college counselor and I ended up applying to McGill very late in the game and decided to go. So I hadn't visited, I'd never been to Montreal. I think I'd only been to Canada once. Just on an Niagara Falls trip, so not even, not real Canada, let's say. So I decided to go though. So I, you know, spent the summer getting the right visas and kind of trying to figure out housing, even though I was a little late in the game. But I ended up going to McGill, studied psychology as I had thought and I, I totally loved it. So it ended up being a pretty unexpected and traumatic situation mm-hmm. that I wouldn't recommend for anyone, but in the end was totally the right path for me. Like I loved the school. McGill is, it's more independent than a typical US school. There's not a lot of handholding. It really is a sink or swim kind of environment, which certainly wouldn't be the right choice for every student, but it turned out kind of by chance that it was a good spot for me.
Carrie:Thank you so much for sharing this. It's so interesting cuz I think we think about the students who don't get into any colleges as students who have, you know, maybe really low grades or they're near the bottom of their class ranking or something like that. But it happens to people across the board. So Absolutely. It's, yeah, it's more common. I think then people realize, because, you know, people aren't posting about that, right? And they're not shouting the rooftops when that happens.
Becca:I'll say, you know, I graduated high school in 1999 and in retrospect, I think pretty lucky that I dodged the social media bullet on that one. Yeah. Although I was in a story in the Chicago Tribune about different paths to college or something like that. Like I was the example of the good student who didn't get into to school.
Carrie:Yeah. And I hope students who hear that, if that happened to them or perhaps happens to you in the future. First of all, you're not alone at all. Even though you may feel like you are, you are not by any means. And also, I think the other lesson to pull from this is, is. Pretty much always another option. Whether it's a school that's on, like the quarter system that starts later that you can apply to later, whether it's one of your local schools, a community college. There's a lot of options out there. Also, some people just decide to take a gap year and they do an internship while they're taking a few basics from their local school. There's always something you can do to move forward from that. Yours is so interesting cuz I hadn't really thought about, well look at a school abroad that's on, like a different, that has different dates and different requirements and everything outside of the United States, but what an interesting option that I don't think is probably discussed a whole lot in high schools. That's such a great idea.
Becca:Absolutely. It, it totally worked out for me. And I think honestly I learned the life lesson of, you know, sometimes you work really hard for something and life goes in a different direction. And that's actually not devastating. Like, I learned that quite early and I learned what it feels like to just not get something that you really wanted. And how that affects your future thinking about what success means and what success looks like. So I actually, in retrospect, even though it was no fun to go through, it was a pretty valuable life lesson.
Carrie:Yeah, and I love the phrase that rejection can be redirection, because I think a lot of us view rejection as I'm not good enough for something. But a lot of times rejection is happening because we need to be redirected to something else, and we're not gonna do that on our own or realize it on our own unless a rejection happens that kind of forces us to go in a different direction.
Becca:Very well put.
Carrie:So you went to McGill and you said that it ended up being a really great environment for you. You said you chose psychology because you, you took the class in high school and you really enjoyed it?
Becca:Yeah. So I took an AP psychology class senior year of high school, and I really loved it, like really connected with the material and, and just felt my brain whizzing in a thousand directions. One of the odd things about going to school in, specifically in Quebec and Montreal is that they have a different system for high school and then a college, a two year college that people do before university. A typical Quebec student goes to high school for three years, this intermediate program called CJA for two years, and then university for three years. And because I had a bunch of AP credits because as I mentioned, I was a huge overachiever. I actually started McGill as a second year student, like in that same kind of stream as a typical Quebec student. So I had to pick a major right away, which actually wasn't, it probably wasn't great. And I can definitely see why most universities encourage students to take a wide variety of classes their first year before they commit. So I committed to psychology right away because it's what I thought I wanted to do. So I jumped right in to the set of required courses and figuring out how to get the right credits for my major. I didn't really have time and to think, reassess, reconfirm, in terms of major. So I think probably like a lot of students, I started down something and then ended up reassessing later on.
Carrie:So as you were going through the classes in the program, were you starting to envision yourself in a career path at all? What was kind of going through your mind as you were going through the program? Did you still enjoy the more advanced courses that you were taking in psychology?
Becca:I definitely enjoyed them, but I think I had a harder time really envisioning myself as a psychologist. I wouldn't say that I ruled it out, but what ended up happening for me is, and this is again, I think something that is kind of the textbook example of what you're supposed to do that almost never actually works for people, but it did for me. And that thing is that I went to see a career counselor in the the McGill Careers Center and we did a short assessment. And they said, have you thought about urban planning? Urban planning is like a match for you. And I was like, huh, I don't know, like what's urban really? Planning? I had a friend who was doing, who is an urban studies major at a different university, and she gave me a couple of books to read and said, you know, these are kind of the seminal urban planning books. And I immediately was like, yes, this is the thing for me. And I didn't think twice about psychology. I was like, that's behind. Like urban planning is the right career for me. I love this. And like, I was totally right. Like it was exactly like I've never looked back or reassessed.
Carrie:Oh my gosh. So did they have an undergrad program in urban planning? Or was it just something you're like, I'm just gonna graduate and move forward to grad school in this?
Becca:So no, there was no urban planning program at McGill. They had a geography program, but at that point I was already close enough to graduating in psychology. Yeah. That it didn't make sense to go back and restart a new major. But what I did do, or McGill has a good, master of urban planning program, like a grad program. So I started to go to events in the grad program, just, you know, whenever they had a speaker or Yeah, even a presentation of student projects. I was like that person sitting in the back row, you know, totally riveted by the student presentations and what they were able to do. I wanted to spend hours looking at every map that their projects produced and kind of absorbing the ideas. And at that point I was doing a ton of reading, of different urban planning kind of thinkers, kind of deep in, and I knew that's what I wanted to do.
Carrie:That's amazing cuz I, I don't think I've ever heard, I mean obviously a lot of people have taken those kind of career assessments and you kind of take it with a grain of salt and go, huh, okay, I'll keep that in mind, you know, moving forward. But to have such a match like that is so incredible. Do you remember what it was that kind of locked you in like that? Was there something in particular that really spoke to you? Because this is a big change right, to go from wanting to do psychology for that long and then just kind of clicking into something, that you hadn't taken any classes on yet. Do you remember what was it that was drawing you in so quickly?
Becca:So I. A couple of things. I think one of the reasons I was a match was a way that I answered how I liked to work individually and in groups. Although, you know, in retrospect kind of being midway into my career, I'm not sure that that's especially specific to urban planning, but I think that was part of how I got slotted into like urban Planner as my matched career path. I grew up in, in a not super exciting suburb of Chicago. I had always really loved going into Chicago. Like I loved taking the train and I felt like, whereas in the suburbs when I walked around, the scale of the built environment is really at a car scale. So you're sort of always understimulated, like you can't walk fast enough past single family homes to have something new and exciting and interesting to look at. And I always had loved the density of cities, like how you're walking past shops and reading what's in the windows and there's a lot going on to consider and integrate and figure out. And so urban planner, I immediately was like, yes, I know this is me. I've always noticed things about cities I had really connected with moving to Montreal and being living in a city and living, you know, using transit to get around, and doing my shopping in the city and eating at restaurants and going to bars and all that stuff. I just knew that was sort of the right scale for me. I think I had also had in mind that I wanted a career, like a kind of a service oriented career, whether that was psychology, where it was like one person at a time or a, a social services type role. And I felt like there was something about urban planning that was exactly the right way to have an impact on people's lives.
Carrie:Yeah. That's awesome. So when you came to this realization, obviously you still graduated. And then were you directly applying to graduate programs like right away or how did you make that transition?
Becca:So I applied to McGill's Urban Planning Program and partly because I was graduating a year before all my friends and I just wanted to stay in Montreal. Yeah. All my friends were still in school and it felt too early. And even my friends from high school were still in school also because I was graduating in three years. So I applied to McGill's program and I got accepted. At the end of the school year, I went backpacking in Europe with a good friend of mine from school. And out of the blue I got an email from an internship that I had applied for in Washington, DC. And it was the odd thing was it was an internship that I had actually been rejected from, like, I had gotten a, sorry, you know, we had a lot of exceptional applicants. And they sent the email had a phrasing that I always remember, which was when we said we wish we could have offered you a spot, we meant it. We got some additional funding and we wanted to offer you the next spot. So basically they grew the program from what they had thought would be six people to seven people. It was with an organization in Washington DC called the Religious Action Center of Reformed Judaism. It's the Reformed Jewish movements, Washington office that does advocacy on policy and organizing and also programs with high school students. And I had actually done the program in high school, so I had a connection to the organization and I was thrilled to accept. I loved the organization and I was excited about moving to Washington. So I deferred grad school to do that for the year. Yeah. And McGill was nice enough to let me defer, although I didn't end up going back. Life kind of took me in a different direction.
Carrie:So this internship, you basically applied to it, so it wasn't a career driven kind of internship choice, it was more of a connection to this organization that you'd had as a student.
Becca:You know, my memory is fuzzy here. It's a long time ago, but I think I applied around the same time that I was applying to grad school, in that fuzzy period of your last semester of university where you're sort of generally trying to figure out what life has holds for you. Yeah. And so there were a few things I was interested in. And even though I knew I wanted to go into urban planning, I didn't mind taking a diversion or trying something else, getting some experience under my belt. And I knew I had time to go back, to move back to urban planning. And that also this job would, even though it wasn't an urban planning job, it was definitely a policy job. And so it certainly had some connections.
Carrie:Yeah. And I think also it's so important for students to think about, you know, a lot of internships, there's a lot of skills that you learn. There's a lot of just networking that you learn. Just because something isn't very specific to what you think your career path is going to be, that doesn't devalue the experience you can get it an internship outside of that path, if that makes sense. Cuz there's so many other things you can learn that you can bring to the table to be a more unique candidate for whatever the path is you're about to go on for your career or for graduate school.
Becca:Absolutely. Like, I think, you know, some of those kind of basic skills like developing a meeting agenda, writing a briefing note for your boss when you know a ton about a topic and you know, your boss only needs to know the key points. Those things are true of lots of jobs and certainly, you know, it was a kind of foundational piece of my first job. Yeah.
Carrie:Can you tell us a little bit about that internship and what you were doing?
Becca:Absolutely. So the, the way that the office is set up is that these interns who are called legislative assistants, are sort of at the heart of everything that that happens in the organization. The organization has positions on a very, very wide range of public policy issues ranging from social welfare programs, food stamps, Medicaid, Medicare, civil liberties, the death penalty, women's reproductive rights, and the legislative assistants at the beginning of the year pick their topics. There's a little bit of a process to divide up, kind of like a Harry Potter sorting hat who works on which issues. I worked on civil liberties and healthcare and those were big years for those issues in Washington. It was right after nine 11. So there was a lot of discussion about what the government could do in terms of surveillance, surveillance of individuals, of different groups and, I guess how to keep America safe at that point, but also while respecting the Constitution. And then on healthcare, it was at a point when there was a discussion in Congress about adding a prescription drug benefit to Medicare, so the healthcare for older Americans. There was a lot of activity on both of those issues, and I was kind of in the middle of it. And particularly we were in coalition with other progressive subject matter experts and then also other religious groups. So we would work a lot with the Methodists and the Lutherans and the Catholic bishops on areas where we had overlapping views on the topic. We often would do lobbying of members of Congress from a general religious perspective, even though our religious traditions were different.
Carrie:Wow. So what do you feel like you took from that, both personally and professionally moving forward?
Becca:I think I took from it the importance to me of having a values driven job, where you really believe in what you're doing and the meaning that that can provide in, in life. And the role that means that a job plays in your overall life. So not necessarily the only thing. I knew that a job for me would never be like only a way to pay the bills.
Carrie:Yeah. And that's so important to realize about ourselves, right? Because I think a lot of people need that. They need meaning in their work or else they don't feel fulfilled and they're not happy with what they're doing. And then there's people way on the other end of the spectrum that just need a nine to five, that they don't have to think about or they don't wanna take it home. Absolutely. You know, and then there's people in the middle, obviously, but that's a key thing for students listening to think about is: are you someone who needs to have meaning in the work that you're doing every day, you know, in the job that you're paid to do? Or do you not even want that? Are you somewhere in between? That's such an important thing to realize.
Becca:Absolutely. Yeah.
Carrie:So while you were in the internship, were you applying to different grad schools then for the next year? Because you mentioned you did not go back to McGill, so how did that transition happen for you?
Becca:Right. You know, I was still thinking about where I wanted to be, and when would be the right time for me to go back to school. So I ended up extending my stay in Washington. I had another kind of similar job, and then applied to grad school from there. And I applied to school in different US schools. At that point, I knew I didn't wanna go back to Montreal. A lot of my desire to stay was really driven by wanting to stick around and continue my university experience. And when my friends graduated, that motivation changed a little bit and so I applied to schools around the US and I ended up going to New York University to NYU, partly because I really wanted to try out living in New York. It seemed like a great place to study urban planning and you know, a little bit of a combination of the funding that I got and what sort of made that possible from a financial perspective.
Carrie:Yeah. So can you talk about the urban planning program that you were in? And for students listening, they might be listening cuz they have an interest in urban planning, but they may not really know what that entails on the academic side. So like what types of classes are you taking and what kinds of projects are you doing? What are the things that you're really thinking through as you go through that type of program?
Becca:Absolutely. So urban planning is a field that definitely has an academic side in terms of research, but it's definitely a professional program that is intended for most students to prepare them for a career in urban planning. So the classes are a mix of theory, you know, what does the literature say about urban planning and different trends in the field? And then classes that were at NYU largely taught by adjuncts who are themselves professionals in the fields. For example, we had a transportation planning class where the professor was a transportation planner and he was often sharing information or stories about projects that he was working on in his office. And similarly for let's say land use planning class that we took, land use law class was taught by an attorney who was working in land use planning. So really a mix between the two. And then in terms of specialization in urban planning, it ranges from people who are interested in urban design, which is closer to the architecture side of the fields. People who are interested in land use planning, which would be, you know, what can we build in this spot? does it have to be residential or does it have to be office or does it have to be industrial? And how big can it be? Can it be three stories or 10 stories or 30 stories? What fits the area? Are there enough parks in the area to give green space to people? Are there major barriers in terms of big transportation arteries that will block people from getting around where they need to go? And then what are other interventions in the built form at the neighborhood level that contribute to quality of life, that make places great places to live? And then I would say there are a bunch of other supporting tools. So for example, we had, an economics class, we had a financial management class, we had statistics. So those kind of basic analytical tools that are preparing you for whatever job you might have, but also kind of building blocks to help understand the world around you, interpret data, use information in different ways.
Carrie:Yeah, and I would assume, do those type programs either require or encourage internships?
Becca:Definitely, NYU it's pretty integrated into New York City government, so a lot of students have internships in government. I worked for the Manhattan Bureau President's office, which was a great internship. I was lucky to have a really great boss and a very patient boss. I also interned at the Tenement Museum in the Lower East Side, which was trying to establish the Lower East Side as a heritage district. So I was documenting heritage buildings in the neighborhood. And then I worked as a research assistant for a professor who had a letter research institute at the university on infrastructure. And actually I was doing a lot of work on pandemics, in 2007, looking at avian flu and spread of avian flu. So that, that became kind of interesting later on.
Carrie:Wow, I bet. So those three positions, I know they're all within urban planning, but they sound so different. Can you tell us a little bit about the differences between those three as far as the work you were doing and the types of projects you were working on? You mentioned them kind of briefly, but I wanted to kind of dig in a little deeper with those.
Becca:Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, they're very, very different. So ranging from the Tenement Museum, which is a nonprofit and a very cool organization, but, I wasn't learning from other urban planners and I had a lot of freedom. I would say also that internship was unpaid. Looking back, I was happy to do it, but I didn't mind, when a different opportunity came up for me, I didn't mind telling them that I wasn't able to continue. And I think that's the nature of unpaid work that your level of commitment is a little bit different there. I moved to the Manhattan Bureau President's office and that was definitely introduction to city government. So, all of the kind of, I guess, chaos that can come along with being in an office of a politician, and being subject to community pressure. So I would often hear that the staff come in and talk about like, a really difficult community meeting they had had the day before where residents were really unhappy about a new development or a traffic change in their neighborhood. So really great to think about how to communicate urban planning issues to the public. That was a lot of what I did there. And then the research assistant opportunity came up for me and, and I was interested in the work. I really, really liked the professor that I worked with. And it was also a position that, the way that it was structured within the university was that it offered full tuition and, that was too generous for me to say no to, too big of a financial impact. And so I guess I'm raising that because I think, you know, when people talk about think their dream school or their dream job, sometimes it's less fun to think about that aspect of it. But, you know, when I got to paying back my student loans, I was certainly happy that I had pursued that that role.
Carrie:Yeah, absolutely. I think that more so to, I mean, I don't know if it is more so today, at least it's more publicly talked about today, right? Um, to really consider and think through those financial decisions because unfortunately some people aren't, especially if you get into a dream school or a dream program. Some people are like, I'm gonna do whatever it takes. I wanna go here and then potentially have some regret later. especially if you're in some kind of six figure debt, you know, from a major institution. Or if you didn't feel like you were very well. Informed about the financial decisions you were making going into a particular program. So that's absolutely something to think about. And there are opportunities for, especially at the graduate level, for assistantship type positions that can cover your tuition. And sometimes that's a separate applications. Sometimes you're automatically being considered for that when you apply to a program. They're kind of different depending on what you're doing. But that's absolutely something to look into cuz that can make a gigantic difference in your student loan situation later.
Becca:Absolutely. And my offer, it came about kind of in a funny way. I thought I was going in for an interview and by the end I was being shown my desk and I was like, wait, when, when did I say yes to this? You know, it's one of those things that if it had been a different setup could have ended up quite badly. And certainly there's a lesson there in saying, you know, hold on, do you mind if I take a few days to think this through? Yeah. But it, it did end up being for the best in this instance.
Carrie:Yeah, absolutely. So as you're going through that graduate program and these different positions that you had with the internships and the research work, were you starting to envision working in a particular type of setting with urban planning? Did you start to have a stronger interest in one area over another?
Becca:good question. So I went into it having a strong interest in housing policy, I think partly as a continuation of the work that I had done in Washington DC. But, I was planning on moving, making a big move after grad school to live in Israel. And so I knew that finding a job would be a little bit tougher because I didn't have a strong network there and it would be my second language working in Hebrew for me. So I purposefully took a pretty wide swath of classes and tried to build myself, some kind of technical skills. So, for example, I took a couple of GIS classes, which is a mapping software that's widely used in urban planning and in other fields as well, knowing that it would help me pitch myself as a stronger candidate. So, even though I did have an interest in housing, I really tried to broaden my background and my skillset so that I would give myself the best shot at getting a job when I made my move.
Carrie:Oh, wow. So is that what you ended up doing after graduate school?
Becca:It is, yeah. So I graduated in May or June, and then had a summer job and then moved to Israel in August. Moved with no job, no apartment. I stayed with a friend for a couple weeks. But I guess I knew what I wanted. I think it was a mix of luck and pluck, I guess, that let things work out. So I ended up, I had one connection to a man who ran a small consulting firm doing public transit planning. As luck had it, he was looking to hire a junior person in his office. And so I had an interview with him and I got the job.
Carrie:Wow.
Becca:I think I had a couple of other interviews for jobs that I was less excited about, and this was really, I was really, really, really fortunate that, you know, whatever I said in my interview, worked and that he wanted to have me on board.
Carrie:That's incredible. So that's what a confirmation that like, you ended up where you're supposed to be.
Becca:Absolutely. Yeah. And also, you know, I should say he was really an incredible boss. Like really saw his role as a teacher and a boss. Like he would be an excellent teacher, although I don't think he's taught a class, but, and really I think a similar orientation to me in terms of being pragmatic, but values driven. It just really worked. And I have still huge respect for him and his office.
Carrie:Oh, that's awesome. So what was that job like?
Becca:It was an amazing first job. Honestly, I, I couldn't have been luckier in terms of being at the right place in the right time. Jerusalem at the time was at the end stages of building a new light rail line, and they were doing a pretty visionary reorganization of the bus network to kind of accommodate the light rail. You know, I live in Toronto now and it's a pretty boring grid system. Streets just extend on into eternity. But Jerusalem is built on a bunch of mountains and it's really hilly, and the streets are the opposite of a grid. They're like a bowl of spaghetti. So it's not straightforward how a bus network would necessarily be organized and there was a lot of room for creativity and for thinking through people's needs and how different neighborhoods connected to each other. And how overall people would navigate around the city. And so a lot of opportunity to redesign and to really dig in and solve problems. It was really, really great hands-on training. And it was a very cool to be in a place where I could see construction of this light route going on. I could see, at a certain point the vehicles testing running back and forth, and to be a part of that. And I think it's served me well in Toronto, where Toronto is building a number of new LRTs. To be a person who's seen that process go to completion, has been a real asset.
Carrie:Yeah. So as like a junior person in that first job, within those projects and those problems that needed to be solved, what was your role?
Becca:So the first year I was in the job, I was the sort of junior planner and there was a senior planner, but we were really kind of the same position. She was just a little more senior to me. She kind of delegated very specific tasks to me and I was pretty timid. I'll also say I was working in my second language. You know, that adds another layer of complexity to things like in an office. This other person could always write a better report than I could because I was writing in a second language where, you know, I was fluent. But that doesn't mean that you have all the flourishes of a native speaker. In my interview for the job, my boss asked, do you know how to write in Hebrew? And I said, of, I definitely know how to write in Hebrew. Which was true, like I knew how to write physically, how to write in Hebrew, but I did not know how to write like a professional email where you're asking someone for a favor, for example. Yeah. And I think it's something that you realize comes naturally in your native language, but in a second language, just how to change your tone to different contexts. How to add in those little, like, you know, as you may know, or just following up on, like all those little kind of phrases that sort of come naturally, I had to learn. And the other thing was Hebrew is a different alphabet, and I'd never typed in Hebrew. So the first few weeks on the job, I was given like a data entry task, like I was writing in for bus routes, the origin and destination point. And I basically forced myself to learn to touch type until I could do it. Like I forced myself to look at the keyboard as little as possible until I was able to type.
Carrie:Yeah. Did you seek guidance on, as far as, you know, getting those particular tones and phrases and everything for emails, were you more studying what was sent to you to try to learn that? Or were you going to people to kind of help with that or seeking another resource? What did you find helped you the most?
Becca:I did everything. So I had a few friends who I could ask, you know, I couldn't ask them to write every single email for me, but I could ask if I had something big, like, Hey, can you read this over and does it look okay? I wanted to bother the people in my office less because it seemed unprofessional to me. I was hired to do a job and I couldn't just depend on my coworkers to do the job for me. The other thing that I did was I had a notebook where basically every email that I got, or every report I read, I would write down all those connector phrases as a list, and then when I had to write something, I would go to my list and just plug in as many of them as I needed, yeah to make it sound kind of professional and flowing and polite and all.
Carrie:Wow, that's a great idea. Yeah. I've heard different people, especially if they're studying abroad for a year. Something like take really interesting tactics to learn things like that. Because, you're Right, when you're in a professional setting, it's so different cuz you're not having a casual conversation where you feel like you can mess up all over the place and the person's really understanding. If you're writing a professional email, like you feel so much more pressure to have it correct.
Becca:Right. And the other thing is sometimes phrases that you learn, that you're happy to learn as a speaker and making friends and all that, you don't even know that they're really casual and they're not appropriate for a professional communication. You think you've learned the way to say X and actually you've learned the way to say that to friends, but definitely not colleagues or a boss.
Carrie:Right. Yeah. That's huge. So how long were you there?
Becca:I was there for five years. So I got to see the light rail go into operation, which was very exciting. While I was there, I met my partner who was from Toronto and was moving back home for graduate school. And so I ended up moving with him.
Carrie:Once you left that position, what do you feel like were the key points that you took from that work experience before you moved?
Becca:So I would say I learned how to be a transportation planner. Like I learned what are the levers you can use to change service, to improve service? How do transportation planners think about the cost and benefits of different changes or interventions into the transit network? What are the benefits of different modes of transit? So like, why would you put an LRT in one place, and run a bus in another place? What conditions do those different modes of transit need to be successful? How frequent should stops be? what should be the distance that people have to walk from their house or their destination to their transit stop? What's the best way to build a transit network? So do you wanna run a bus from everywhere to everywhere, or do you wanna have people transfer? So really it was that technical knowledge, being able to speak confidently and competently about transportation networks is what I learned. So really the nuts and bolts of the job.
Carrie:In urban planning, is pretty much all of that easily transferable between different countries and different cultures, or are there different ways that that's viewed around the world?
Becca:Good question. So urban planning is interesting in that local context is really, really, really important. But international comparisons are also really, really, really important. So being able to say sometimes, Hey, I know you think that you can only have this policy because that's how it's always been here. Actually, in a few places in Europe and South America, they do it differently and it works really well. And then in facilitating change, especially with the public, that can be a useful message to say, I know you're used to it this way here, but doing it this other way has worked well in other cities. It is always gonna have a connection to a political layer of elected officials who are accountable to the public and responsive to public pressure.
Carrie:It sounds like it's fairly transferrable even coming from another area of the world.
Becca:Yeah. Definitely transferrable in terms of the mechanics of how a transit network works, even though there are always small differences and sometimes there are differences in technologies, especially on the rail side between different countries and what allowable practices are. I think the other piece of local context is actually just knowing the geography of the city that you're working in. So, by the end of the time that I lived in Jerusalem, I could look at a map of the city and label, you know, probably 80% of the streets without referring to Google maps or an atlas or whatever. And then moving to Toronto, I really had to start over and learn the lay of the land and the geography. And geography does matter and that it really is something that you need to learn in every place. Yeah. You can't really do the job until you know how the city or the region is laid out.
Carrie:So when you moved to Toronto, were you interested in seeking out the same type of work that you'd been doing in Jerusalem? Did you wanna try something different? Like what was your approach to job searching?
Becca:I was definitely interested in staying in transportation and I would've been happy to stay in a similar job. I really loved my job in Jerusalem. But the same as when I moved to Jerusalem, I was casting a reasonably wide net just because I did need a job and I couldn't, you know, sit around and wait for the most specific position. So I was open, but optimistic that I could do something building on the skills I had learned in Jerusalem.
Carrie:So where did you end up?
Becca:So I did a ton of informational interviews where at the end of every single one I said, do you have any suggestions of other people I could work with? I did a very short stint at a big consulting firm in Toronto that needed extra help on one project. And they weren't able to keep me, but I did make a good impression on the lead who ended up being a useful reference. So I ended up applying for a job at Metrolinks, which is my current employer. Metrolinks is the regional agency, a provincial agency in Ontario that does transportation planning in the Toronto region, as well as delivery of new transit projects and operating the regional rail and bus network.
Carrie:You've been in a few different positions there, right? Can you talk to us about the different positions you've had and what kinds of work you were doing in each one, and then also how you were able to transition between the positions you've had?
Becca:Absolutely. So I've always been in the planning division. Metrolinks also has a division of, let's say, operators who are really focused on getting the trains running on time and people who lead construction projects at stations and of new rail lines and of bridges and all that stuff you think about when you think about transportation infrastructure. But I've always been on the planning side of it. I actually started in a six month parental leave backfill. And that's a small plug for Canada because there are longer parental leaves. It gives a lot of opportunities for junior people to try out different jobs, which is kind of a useful cool thing. Yeah. So I started out on a six month contract and ended up renewing that and then getting another similar job. And at first I was doing a lot of work on the service planning side. So, you know, we're gonna add a rail trip from Toronto to a neighboring town at 4:53 PM. What do we think is going to be the ridership? How many people are gonna switch to that train from a previous train they had been taking? How are people gonna get to and from the station? What's the average fare that's paid? All of those kinds of questions. But really on the tactical service planning side. And I did a lot in that position on help people get to their station. And that's actually, I've kind of come back to that now 10 years later. That's a lot of what I'm working on now in my current team. And in the middle I did a lot of network planning. So how do people move around the transportation network? What lines are overcrowded? Where is there extra capacity? If you added a new rail connection, how would people divert from one route to another route? Are the stations overcrowded? How do you get people to change their travel behavior to ease crowding? All of those kind of question. And then I've done a lot of work on new transit projects. So a couple of new subway projects where the role is really evaluating which is the best route, in terms of benefits to society. So is it saving people travel time? Is it reducing greenhouse gas emissions? Is it reducing congestion? Where should the stations go? You know, if you add a station in the middle, you slow down the commute for everyone who's coming from the ends, but you add a new access point for people from the middle. So is it better to have the station or not have the station? Is it worth it? Is it adding value? And then in using a tool that in Toronto and elsewhere is called a business case where you take a systematic approach to projects and evaluate them according to a pretty standard list of criteria. And that way, you know, you have a library of reports that are comparable, one to the other, and you sort of know what you expect and if you're being comprehensive in evaluating whether a project is high performing and whether it merits investment from government. The other piece of my kind of different roles at Metrolinks was a transition from being an individual contributor, so someone who was really project managing a specific project subject matter expert in that project to being a people leader where I was leading teams. I also certainly needed to know a lot about the projects the team was working on. But my other responsibility was managing people. Thinking about employee engagement, thinking about keeping people interested in their work, thinking about coaching and how staff could improve their performance. What were areas to work on. I think that's a transition that I've seen be really tough for people, especially people who are kind of perfectionists and who are used to knowing that they want their work to look a very specific way, and then all of a sudden they need to actually trust and manage someone else to produce those outputs. Hmm. Yeah. And so the key question becomes like, This isn't how I would've done it, but am I happy with it and can I give this person ownership over it even though it's different than what I would've done? And of course I'm perfect. So what I would've done is the best.
Carrie:There is a certain degree of letting go for sure. That has to happen.
Becca:Absolutely. And I think earlier in my career, I actually remember saying this to my partner. I said to him, and he told me later that he thought it was a turnoff. I said, I have no ambition. I love doing what I'm doing. And I wouldn't want to like manage people and run a company. And I was thinking of about my boss at the time who ran a company and it looked like a lot of administrative work that was not interesting to me. Yeah. But what I meant was I really love actually doing the work. I don't wanna do the other parts that take me away from actually doing the work. And I really thought that at the time, but I ended up, I really love managing a team also and kind of setting the tone of a team. How do you want people to work together? How do you wanna encourage people? How do you want people to think about their work? And how can you set up the conditions to make that possible and to make work feel fun and meaningful and interesting and rewarding and all this stuff that, you know, I think everyone hopes to get out of their job.
Carrie:Yeah. So when you moved into that space, cuz you were saying that before didn't think you would want to be in that space. Is there something in particular that once you got into that space, changed your mind about that and made you realize that you did enjoy it?
Becca:I think one piece is that I had previously worked in a very small consulting firm, so when I made that comment, I was in a pretty non-hierarchical environment. Working in a public agency is fairly hierarchical. And so advancement means managing a team of people. And it turned out that I did have some ambition, and wanted to advance and get promoted. And that came with managing a team. I was excited to try it and just have a new challenge and a new angle on how I fit into the organization and into our collective work. And I really loved it. Like I loved thinking about how to engage people, how to get them into the work, how to help them be their best.
Carrie:Yeah. Maybe some of that psychology stuff coming back a little bit, perhaps?
Becca:Definitely. I think, yeah, good insight.
Carrie:And I think it's also interesting for students to hear and to think about is that, you know, we have these different chapters in our lives, right? Where we just want different things than we used to. And something that you wanna do when you're 25 is not necessarily what you wanna do when you're 35 and not necessarily what you wanna do when you're 45. So that's not a bad thing. We just grow and realize more about ourselves and develop more skills and experience that lead us to kind of want different things, perhaps unexpected from before.
Becca:That's true. And I can't wait to see what I want next.
Carrie:Yeah. That's awesome. For students who've listened to this conversation and thought, wow, this sounds really interesting, I do wanna start looking into urban planning. Are there specific things that you would recommend that students start pursuing at the undergraduate level, if they have an interest in this career trajectory? Whether it's courses or experiences or internships, or what are the things that you feel like are most helpful to get under your belt at the undergraduate level?
Becca:Great question. So I think really you have to start with reading, Jane Jacobs, the Death and Life of Great American Cities. It continues to be the seminal Urban Planning text. And I think it was certainly my kind of first connection where I was like, oh my gosh, this is definitely for me. Like, I love everything in this book. So I definitely recommend starting there. In terms of reading, I would say, you know, the American Planning Association is a great resource to take a look at and browse through reports, look at the city where you live, or the town where you live, and, the municipal website and whatever they have about upcoming development applications. If you're able to attend a public meeting and kind of get a sense of how your town talks about urban planning issues, I bet if you approached one of the municipal urban planners and said you were interested, they'd be happy to chat with you. I find most urban planners are pretty excited about recruiting new urban planners and sort of meeting people who share interests. The best way to like catch a group of urban planners is to put up a map on a wall and everyone will just gravitate over and start talking about the map. I think lots of things you can do to sort of see, gauge your interest and see if it's the right path for you. Yeah,
Carrie:absolutely. And then as far as internships go, I mean, to your knowledge, is some kind of municipal or government internship, one of the more informative things or is it good to also look at like a private sector type of position?
Becca:I would say I think both are really good options and, you know, really just depends on where you live and what's available in the town or city that you live in. But certainly, urban planning consulting firms are part of the fabric of the profession and many of those firms would hire interns. So certainly a good option. Typically, I think what I see is more interns who are at the graduate level than the undergraduate level. It doesn't mean it's impossible, but it might be that going down a path of kind of thinking about grad school and then doing internships from that context, would be more typical, but certainly not impossible as an undergrad.
Carrie:And I should have asked you earlier, but is there a licensure with your type of position?
Becca:There is an optional registered professional planner, or, gosh, that might be the Canadian term and not the US term, which I'm not remembering. There is a certification. It's not mandatory. Often consultants will have it in and government officials may be less likely to have it because they don't need it to bid on projects. I guess my overall experience is, While a master of urban planning is the most common path into the field, there are lots of people who've taken different paths. So the certification is definitely a way to show your credibility, but it's not the only way.
Carrie:So looking back over your journey, do you have any big picture advice for students who are either about to begin college or perhaps are already in college? Are there some lessons that you've learned over your journey that you would like to share?
Becca:Yeah, so I often think that people sort of group into two buckets. One bucket are like the where do you wanna be in five years and what do you need to do to get there? And like very strategically charting out every twist and turn. And then there's a second bucket of people who are more like, you never know what's gonna happen. Unexpected things can have really cool outcomes and you could be happy taking a lot of different paths. There isn't like one way that's gonna be the route to fulfillment. And you probably have gotten this from me already. I'm firmly in the second bucket. So I would say opening up options for yourself is good, seeing where things lead and what unexpected kind of cool thing can happen, is a great way to go through life. If you have one very specific ambition and that's the only thing that you wanna do, by all means go for it. But if you don't, and I suspect most people are a little bit hazier and many people take career twists and turns over their lifetimes, that can all be helpful. That can all be fun. That can all be fulfilling. You never know who you're gonna meet or what opportunities are gonna come up through that. And I think, you're not missing anything if you don't know, I definitely want this job in five years, or my whole career is working towards this one specific role.
Carrie:Yeah. Absolutely. And even those people who do think they know they want this specific thing in five years, for a lot of those people, it's gonna change anyway.
Becca:Right, right. Yeah. Very true. Yeah.
Carrie:That's such good advice. Well, Becca, thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you for sharing your story and giving this great advice and giving us a little bit of insight into your field.
Becca:It was a pleasure. Thank you so much for having me and for the really excellent questions.
Carrie:Oh, thank you.
Do you know someone I should interview? Please DM me on Instagram@pathsinprogresspodcast and let me know who I should talk to. I would love to hear about how these stories are impacting your journey. Please follow Paths in Progress wherever you download your podcasts and leave a review to let me know what you think. You can also follow us on Facebook and LinkedIn at Paths in Progress Podcast. Our music is by John Grimmett and the artwork is by Edgar Alanis. Thanks again for joining me today.