What department are you a graduate student in?  

I’m a graduate student in the Department of Urban Planning, with a specialization in Transportation. 

Why did you decide to go to graduate school? 

I decided to go to graduate school because after spending a couple of years doing media work after my undergraduate career (2018-2020), I realized it wasn’t what I wanted to be doing. I also received a life-changing health diagnosis of Crohn’s disease and Celiac’s, so I was rethinking my life decisions and choices a lot! I wanted a more engaging and practically applicable job environment, where I could work directly with the community around me and contribute to change. I’d been a bus rider for over a decade, dating back to middle school, so I had a particular fondness for public transportation and the good it provides towards sustaining a community. Naturally, the transportation specialization in DURP at FSU felt like a perfect match! 

Did your interests change throughout your program? 

Throughout my program my specific research interests developed into a more pronounced focus towards bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure planning. When I first entered the program, my primary interest was accessibility and paratransit (on-demand rides, typically for elderly and disabled populations), which I still care about deeply, but that has expanded now. Finding the intersection between these two interests is key, I think – both involve an overall increase of mobility to underserved groups of people.

What do you want to do with your advanced degree?

With my degree, I want to be a transportation planner! I am currently a Transit Fellow at StarMetro, and using this experience in combination with my classes has led to me wanting to follow this path. It’s less likely that I would get a position that’s narrowly focused on one of my specific research interests in the job environment, but that’s no problem – a significant appeal of Planning careers is the necessity of being involved in many different sorts of projects, both in the form of solo tasks, and collaboratively with other team members.