Dual Degree Option: Master of Regional Planning/Master of Science in Geography
The Landscape Architecture and Regional Planning Department’s Master of Regional Planning Program and the Geoscience Department’s Master of Science in Geography Program offer a dual degree program for students to earn a Master of Science in Geography and a Master of Regional Planning in two years plus summers of full-time study. The fields of planning and Geography are intertwined in numerous ways. Many positions in government as well as in the private and nonprofit sectors can best be fulfilled by people who have the technical knowledge, multi-scale analysis, conceptual and critical insights, and applied understandings of local and regional contexts that combine the skills of geographers and planners. For example, planners in local governments may be able to work more effectively if they can investigate and understand the relationship of their local community to broader political and economic forces and trends, using analyses of multi-scalar relationships that are common in geography. They may be able to better understand social and ecological issues of local or regional land use if they have a geographer’s insights into the complex and interactive dynamics of demographic and environmental change. Conversely, geographers, especially in publicly-oriented enterprises or organizations, may be more effective if they have skills to formulate and implement land-use plans in a municipal or regional context and to understand regulatory and participatory processes relative to a specific location. Planners and geographers may be aided by tools of Geographic Information Systems (GIS), commonly taught in both fields, but given particular analytical depth in Geography, where advanced training produces scholars and practitioners who can undertake complex investigation, visualization, and analysis of a wide range of data distributed over time and space.
This connection between these fields is reflected at UMass Amherst in the fact that there is a high degree of crossover between MS Geography students taking Regional Planning courses and MRP students taking Geography courses, even outside the dual degree program as well as faculty collaboration in research and program development activities. Our faculty help bolster social, cultural, and policy aspects in the School of Earth and Sustainability. Some prospective students have already expressed a great deal of interest in pursuing such a potential combination.
The MS Geography curriculum at UMass is designed to provide students with major theoretical, analytical and technical foundations, applicable to a wide range of applications. The program, like the field of geography, integrates socioeconomic, natural, and geospatial sciences, providing graduate education in human geography, environmental geography, remote sensing, and spatial analysis. The MRP core curriculum focuses on combining theoretical, historical, social, political, and technical dimensions of planning practice with strong emphasis on practice through studio and service to a wide range of communities. The 2+ year dual-degree program offers students educational experience in many areas of social-environmental theory and analysis, project management and planning. Students gain the ability to analyze and understand a broad variety of human and environmental processes and relationships both across space and also within specific places and regions, to apply these understandings, collaborate with governments, nonprofits, and various constituencies, and respond to change. Topics of research and practice include infrastructure development, urban systems, resource policy and planning, GIS technology, sustainable development, and land use.
The MRP/MS Geography degree program provides graduates with comprehensive education for professional careers in urban and regional planning, land use and resource management and policy, GIS and spatial analysis, sustainability advocacy, data-driven project management, and infrastructure development at the local, state, regional, national, and international level.
Students must apply to and be admitted to both programs, and must meet satisfactory academic progress requirements in each program. Before admission, students will be required to complete relevant coursework required in the respective programs. (or equivalent practical experience).
Additional information regarding M.R.P. program options is available in the Landscape Architecture and Regional Planning section of this Bulletin.
Additional information regarding Geography program options is available in the Geosciences section of this Bulletin.