Master in Urban Planning: MUP
Professional Degree
Alex Krieger
Chair of the Department of Urban Planning and Design
Judith Grant Long
Director of the Master in Urban Planning Degree Program
Urban planners play a central role in fostering a productive, sustainable, and equitable built environment. The built environment encompasses private and public buildings, transportation and other infrastructure, and public spaces, all arrayed spatially as land-use and form-based patterns fundamentally affecting the quality of human experience at work, home, and play.
The accredited two-year Master in Urban Planning (MUP) degree program, a first professional degree program, focuses on planning for the development, enhancement, and preservation of the built environment. Through a pedagogically innovative mix of studios, lecture classes, seminars, and independent study, students learn how to understand, analyze, and influence the variety of forces-social, economic, cultural, legal, political, ecological, and aesthetic, among others-shaping the built environment. The program teaches students how to understand these forces through deep immersion in the histories and theories of urban planning and urbanism as profession and phenomenon; how to analyze these forces through intelligent application of qualitative, quantitative, and representational techniques; and how to influence these forces through creative interventions and thorough facility with laws, institutions, finance, design, and politics.
A two-year enrollment of roughly 60 students and a core, interdisciplinary faculty of scholars and practitioners generate an intimate, engaged educational atmosphere in which students acquire the knowledge and skills necessary for leadership positions in their future professional careers. Graduates of the program work in local city planning departments, state and national agencies, private consulting firms, not-for-profit organizations, development companies, and other public and private institutions in the United States and internationally.
Core courses provide students with fundamental knowledge and technical skills used by urban planners to generate, evaluate, and implement ideas, plans, and projects. Studio offerings encourage students, individually or as members of collaborative teams, to think creatively and apply interdisciplinary, problem-solving methods to United States and international planning issues and projects. Elective courses satisfy faculty-supervised areas of concentration in housing and neighborhood development, real estate and urban development, transportation and infrastructure, urban design, or in an area specially crafted by a student and faculty member. Students may choose to write a thesis in their fourth and final term.
The MUP degree program also allows students to take full advantage of curricular offerings of the GSD's other degree programs, in urban design, landscape architecture, and architecture. Indeed, some students pursue the MUP degree concurrently with these other GSD degrees.
The MUP degree program also draws upon the significant resources of the rest of Harvard University. The program shares two professorships with the Kennedy School of Government and administers a joint degree program with the Law School. Students often cross-register in courses offered by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, the Kennedy School, the Business School, the Law School, and the School of Public Health. Students also cross-register in courses offered by the neighboring Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Preparation for Admission
Individuals who have completed a four-year bachelor of arts or bachelor of science degree, or its equivalent, in any field, are eligible for admission.
Residence
Four terms of full-time study in residence are normally required for award of the degree. Under special circumstances, students may receive permission to reduce their course loads and extend their studies over a longer period of time. Concurrent and joint degree candidates must consult the rules governing concurrent and joint degrees for information on residence.
Requirements for Award of Degree
A candidate will be recommended for the MUP degree upon satisfactory completion of 80 units, normally completed as 20 units of required and elective courses each term. Lecture and seminar courses are usually four units, studios are usually eight units. Over the two years, students must take 28 units of core studio and lecture courses, 12 units satisfying the three Methods Requirements (Analytic Methods, Economic Methods, and Implementation Methods), 12 units satisfying one of five Areas of Concentration (history and theory, housing and neighborhood development, real estate and urban development, transportation and infrastructure, urban design, or a specially crafted area), and one 8-unit studio beyond the two first-year core studios. Students complete the remainder of the program with elective courses and, if they choose, a fourth studio or independent thesis. At the beginning of each year, students are assigned a faculty advisor with whom they discuss their curricular schedule and other academic matters. Concurrent and joint degree students must consult the rules governing such programs for additional information on curricular requirements.
The following academic schedule must be taken over the two-year program:
First Term
8 units GSD 1121 First Semester Core Urban Planning Studio
4 units GSD 3329 Core Urban Planning Workshop
4 units GSD 5101 Histories and Theories of Urban Interventions
4 units Courses satisfying Methods Requirements, Area of Concentration Requirement, and/or electives*
Second Term
8 units GSD 1122 Second Semester Core Urban Planning Studio
4 units GSD 5103 Public and Private Development
8 units Courses satisfying Methods Requirements and Area of Concentration Requirement, and/or electives
Third Term
8 units Studio option or elective courses
12 units Courses satisfying Methods Requirements and Area of Concentration Requirement, and/or electives
Fourth Term
8 units Studio option or Independent Thesis or elective courses
12 units Courses satisfying Methods Requirement and Area of Concentration Requirement, and/or electives