What are the best ways to get a foot in the door?
The best way to get a foot in the door is getting an internship at a local planning department or private planning firm. The good thing is that every city has a planning department, so you’ll always find places you could keep an eye on for internships. My organization, APA, has an online list of jobs and internships; that’s how I found mine. But even if you can’t find an internship specifically in a planning department, a lot of other fields offer experience that you will need as a planner, like working for a local government or city council, environmental organizing, a housing nonprofit, etc. Not everyone that gets into a graduate school in urban planning has specific planning experience, but it is important to have some good experience that is at least closely related.
