Handbook

The Bachelor of City Planning (Hons) provides academic education and applied learning leading to professional, accredited qualifications in planning. The BCP (Hons) is a four-year, full-time, embedded honours program of study. The core courses develop and strengthen disciplinary foundations, and elective courses develop advanced and specific knowledge and skills. The program also incorporates a ‘practice year’ of work integrated learning, with students developing skills in the workplace as well as the classroom. The final year of capstone projects involves opportunities to further pursue specialist areas of interest, through a plan-making studio and a research thesis.

Planning is a varied and progressive profession which plays a pivotal role in decisions shaping the future of cities and regions. Planners need to see the whole picture: we need to be good thinkers, good analysts and good communicators. We work with stakeholders across the spectrum of interests - from global developers to local communities - to foster feasible, equitable, sustainable and progressive outcomes. Working at the interface between development and environment, the planner's role involves collecting and analysing information, identifying needs and options, making forecasts, preparing policies, plans and programs for implementation, exercising development control, investigating development proposals, and evaluating results, communicating outcomes and consultation. Sydney and NSW provide a fantastic laboratory to help understand the crucial role played by planners in addressing complex challenges, systematically placed in its global context through critical analysis and drawing upon best practice.

The Bachelor of City Planning (Hons) aims to produce high quality graduates who have acquired UNSW Graduate attributes and are capable, through their skills, knowledge and experience, of undertaking a wide range of tasks required of a qualified planning practitioner. As well as preparing for the profession, a planning degree provides lifelong analytical, collaborate and communication skills much in demand more widely.