Working for the city doesn’t sound too bad anymore
If anyone asked me 6 weeks ago: Could you imagine working at the Bremen Senat or working for the city of Berlin? I would have surely answered with “no”. Because what our European education is mostly focusing on (B.A. in the Netherlands, M.A at Hertie): either go big (UN, EU, etc.) or go home. Or go to consultancies.
But what our education at Hertie misses is promoting the great job opportunities that one has at the municipal and provincial levels. Therefore, I am super happy that I chose this course for my semester abroad. It was short, it was sweet — but surely worth it.
Talking intensely about cities and city policies, I now perceive cities differently than before the course. The most obvious learning was that urban policy is really huge. It encompasses so many different fields — it can be very strategic but also very operational and one can see the impact of his job directly. This point was raised many times by alumni — and it was one of my favorite things in this class, too. Talking to alumni has helped me to gain a better understanding of which kinds of jobs are actually out there and further, it was so inspiring to see how the alumni were actually so passionate and motivated about what they are doing right now. Having first theory in the morning and after lunch, a praxis-orientated class was a very well-chosen mix.
Alright — through the readings, the class discussions, and the alumni, I have become somehow an expert on Canadian urban policy by now (although some things seem to be still very complicated to me). Where is this course at Hertie? It is missing. We do not have a single course that covers policy decision-making from an urban perspective for German policy making. All courses at Hertie have an international perspective. What is very interesting in class, does not help a lot in praxis. During my professional year at PwC, I actually had no clue how policies are made on a municipal level and what urban policy entails. So great Job to Munk, to see this gap and set up such a course!
I also want to reflect on the final assignment. Replacing an exam with such a big group project is the best way to end the course. Exams are forgotten quickly but advising an NGO and investing a lot of time into the project will stick. The project’s topic is very complex — but the idea to split it up into six groups helps to cover every perspective. It was a “real world” project and I am glad that we took on the challenge. My topic of digitization and data was very interesting and touched upon my previous work on digitization strategies for cities. However, it seems to be difficult to gather data related to the Toronto region.
