SPEPtacular!

It's about time I talk about my current "career situation". Am I currently working? No. Am I an undergraduate student? No. I am what you could call 'purposefully unemployed'. Or a postgraduate student as more commonly known. This time last year, I was still not sure whether I would be undertaking a Masters... not for a while anyway. But thanks to a dying economy, funding opportunities (for which I am eternally grateful) and a lack of job opportunities, here I am! I've heard people call a Masters an investment. I hope that in a few months, that will prove to be true, but from my current point of view, it's more of an overpriced hell to put yourself though. Still... considering the current rise in tuition fees, I find myself extremely lucky to be doing it now.

SPEP stands for Sustainability, Planning and Environmental Policy - arguably the longest title for a Masters. But SPEPers are an exciting breed. I have taken great pleasure in getting to know the class of 2010/2011 who come from a huge range of backgrounds. I could spend hours talking about what we do and what makes us the best Masters course in the School of Planning at Cardiff (ha!), but I won't quite now. In short... When guest lecturers talk proudly about the economic benefits of their projects, we are the ones who raise our hands and ask about the implicated social and environmental costs. We work hard and in our free time we talk about the difficulties of being green (and we moan about the onslaught of deadlines). And when Kevin McCloud comes to the university to talk about EcoCities, we are on the front row ... OK, so maybe that's because it's Kevin McCloud, but still!

I, in no way, regret having chosen to do this Masters. I'll put that partly down to the awesomness of SPEPers, but also because I really feel like I'm doing something worthwhile. Before starting this course, I had applied to various jobs in the environmental sector, and I was surprised (or rather annoyed) at the constant requirement for a postgraduate level of education. Why had I indebted myself for three years only to be told that my degree wasn't enough?! I understand why now. The 'environment' is such a complicated mass of tangles, you need not only a comprehensive understanding of the environment as a whole but also the specific understanding and expertise of a certain area/sector. Doing SPEP is like a crash-course in the expertise area. It's also about gaining a critical perspective and not being afraid of taking a radical outlook on things - something which is particularly important from an environmental viewpoint. In 4 months, my ideas and speculations about environmentalism have been squished, expanded and re-articulated... and there's still 8 months left!

So here's to the next 8 months. And here's to my fellow SPEPers, without which I would probably be in a mental asylum repeatedly talking about the values and improbabilities of bioregionalism!