What to do with a Major in Urban Studies?
As Urban Studies is a multidisciplinary field, the possibilities for after Vassar are endless. Through a degree in Urban Studies, students gain a multidisciplinary perspective on the forms and cultures of cities, planetary urbanization, urban ways of life, design and architecture, and urban planning and policy. Many alums have gone on to earn advanced degrees from institutions such as Columbia, Georgia State University, Harvard, Hunter, NYU, Pratt, Rutgers, University of Michigan, UCLA, UC Berkeley, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, University of Texas at Austin, UPenn, and Yale. Other alums began working in fields such as architecture, consulting, policy analysis, sustainability, and urban planning.
The following is a sample of the most common careers for Urban Studies Alums, along with examples of alums who work in those fields.
Ari Vamos (’17) graduated with an Urban Studies degree and spent the next few years working in community organizing and neighborhood economic development in Philadelphia. After going back to school for a Master’s in Landscape Architecture at the University of Pennsylvania, they started their current role as a landscape designer at ABLE, a small Seattle-based practice that specializes in co-creating everyday public spaces with community. About their time at Vassar, they say, “I draw on my URBS background in my landscape architecture work in a number of ways: bringing a critical lens to how structures of power are embedded in the built environment, reading sites’ many-layered histories through deep analysis and research, and exploring how design can celebrate the complex relationships between people and place.”
Marissa Reilly (’13) majored in Urban Studies with concentrations in Architecture and Geography, following her passion for the built environment, first into the field of city planning and urban design. After graduating from MIT’s Master of City Planning program, she pivoted slightly to occupy a different seat at the city-making table — as a residential housing developer. The theoretical frameworks and critical thinking strategies she developed through her Urban Studies and Geography courses, coupled with her studies in architectural form, aesthetics, and design, have positioned her to lead diverse projects that make cities more livable, equitable, and sustainable.
Susan Martinez (’15), after graduating from Vassar, earned a Master of Urban Planning degree from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She currently works as an independent consultant, providing technical assistance on community engagement approaches and health equity. Most recently, she served as a Coordinating Planner at the Chicago Department of Public Health, leading and designing projects centering community leadership and expertise at the intersection of health equity, environmental justice, and neighborhood planning and development. About her time at Vassar, she says, “Every person, with their unique set of experience and expertise, has a role to play, and multidisciplinary studies like URBS were foundational in developing my value system for community-driven work. I couldn’t have asked for more supportive professors and curious classmates who all shared the same excitement about cities, and helped me think about what kind of practitioner I’d like to be. I wouldn’t have found myself working at the intersection of public health and urban planning if it weren’t for the curious side of me that URBS nurtured!”
Daniel McPhee (’10) majored in Urban Studies. After graduating, he moved to New York and started as an intern at the Urban Design Forum that summer. He’s been there ever since. He helped marshal a merger between the Forum and another organization in 2015 and was appointed director in 2016. The Forum is part membership network, part incubator, part think tank. And they focus on a whole range of issues from housing to mobility to open space. He says of his time at Vassar, “Nothing could have prepared me better than a little architecture, a little sociology, and a lot of political science.”
Katharine George (’14) is an art and architectural conservator for EverGreene Architectural Arts. She works on an array of projects which cover many aspects of historic preservation and conservation work, including: research, documentation, condition assessments, conservation treatments, construction management, and materials testing and analysis. At Vassar, she was an URBS major with concentrations in history and architecture. Her thesis was on historic preservation and adaptive reuse in Poughkeepsie. Following Vassar, Katharine attended the University of Pennsylvania School of Design’s Master’s in Historic Preservation program with a focus in material science. She says that her time at Vassar prepared her for the “multidisciplinary aspect of preservation work and a career in hands-on conservation work was even a suggestion of a professor while I was writing my URBS thesis. Having a liberal arts background has proved invaluable in my communication, writing, and critical thinking abilities.”
Michael Zajakowski Uhll (’17) helps to run a city-funded tenant organizing program at the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development. Of his job, he says, “It is the perfect mix of advocacy, organizing, and planning—a mix of passions that the URBS program at Vassar helped to foment.” At Vassar, he was an Urban Studies major, which led to a post-grad fellowship studying urban social movements in Buenos Aires, Argentina. After he returned to New York, he worked for the NYC government as a Police Misconduct Investigator before pursuing his Master’s in Urban Planning at Harvard University. He says that majoring in Urban Studies “has been highly influential for my career path. The multidisciplinary nature of the program allowed me to focus on social issues as well as the built environment.”
Alistair Corse (Hall) (’11) is an Associate Director for KPMG Corporate Sustainability, where he manages progress toward the firm’s sustainability goals through renewable energy and carbon offset procurement, value chain engagement, and reporting. While in client advisory roles at KPMG, he supported major technology, consumer brands, and utilities with developing Net Zero roadmaps, preparing GHG emissions reporting, evaluating climate risk, and providing project and change management support for large organizational transformations. Prior to joining KPMG, he served as Vassar’s first full-time Sustainability Director, working with students, faculty, and administration on climate action, renewable energy, and sustainability in the curriculum. He earned his MBA in Sustainability from Bard College in 2018, where he deepened his understanding of change management and green business principles. About his time at Vassar, he says, “Urban Studies taught me the importance of thinking in systems, that everything is connected—the urban is everywhere!—and that there is an art and science to driving positive social change.”
Arianna Hillard (’22) majored in Urban Studies at Vassar with a focus on architecture and planning. After graduating, she began her career as a planner at WGI and now works on a variety of land development and urban and community planning projects. Of her time at Vassar, she says, “The URBS program introduced me to urban studies from many different lenses, which has been essential in my career as I work alongside architects, designers, engineers, environmental scientists, and other professionals daily on multidisciplinary projects.”
Diego Martin (’19) is a Planning Consultant for the Town of Westerly, Rhode Island, where he manages public sector capital projects focused on transit-oriented development and affordable housing. As an urban studies major at Vassar, he was most interested in exploring architectural design, which led him to pursue his Master of Architecture at the University of Pennsylvania. Reflecting on his time at Vassar and as an URBS major, he notes, “I was able to tailor my coursework to have a healthy balance of theory and praxis. I took courses like Urban Theory and Making Cities and coupled them with architecture studios and Intro to GIS. It not only gave me a solid technical foundation going into a graduate design program, but also prepared me to think critically and contextualize a lot of the principles I was being taught and still use today.”
Brett Merriam (’15) is an urban planner and strategist, working at Gehl, an international urban design firm focused on the interaction between the public realm and human behavior. At Vassar, he received an Urban Studies degree with thematic foci in human geography and architectural history and design; he then received a Master’s in Urban Planning from Harvard Graduate School of Design. About his time at Vassar, he notes, “The Urban Studies Program allowed and encouraged me to explore all aspects of the discipline, from anthropology and theoretical analysis to urban design and art history. Vassar taught me how to ‘see the city’ in new ways and to apply academic concepts to grounded places and projects.”