Science, Geography and Planning
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| UQ Student Isabel Cerón Castaño with Associate Professor John Minnery. |
Isabel Cerón Castaño - Master of Urban and Regional Planning & Master in Regional Development
Colombia
I chose UQ because it is an academically prestigious and research-hungry university, which is all you aim for when deciding where to do your postgraduate studies. Brisbane's weather is also a plus.
I came from Colombia to study a Master of Urban and Regional Planning degree at UQ's School for Geography, Planning and Environmental Management.
Wanting to develop my knowledge of regional areas further, upon completing my first degree, I jumped straight into a second Master degree in Regional Development.
My studies at UQ were fundamental in landing my first job as a Junior Consultant with the Property of Economics team at Urbis.
I first entered the company as a student planner, while doing the last semester of the Master of Urban and Regional Planning, and then continued to work with them part-time while studying the Master of Regional Development.
Isabel excelled during her studies receiving a number of awards including the 2010 Queensland Planning Institute of Australia (PIA) Excellence award for Outstanding Student Project (Tertiary), where she worked as part of a team on a policy-design exercise to transform Brisbane into a 24-hour city.
She also presented her thesis paper titled ‘Towards Better Conceptualisation in the Design of Monitoring Systems for the Urban Form’ at the recent PIA state conference and received a Merit for her work in the 2011 PIA awards.
Now that she has finished her second Master degree Isabel has decided to stay in Australia and is moving to North Queensland to take up a position as a Strategic Planning Officer with the Mackay Regional Council.
