Several resources are available to MUP students. These include both funding opportunities and Career Services:
Funding and Research Opportunities
- Many planning students find jobs at research centers and labs (with jobs advertised when you get here either in student list serves or in courses faculty are teaching):
- Major GSD-specific research centers and labs Look at menu to left.
- Many projects typically run for a specific period of time. Current and recent projects include the: Harvard Mellon Urban Initiative, the Mexican Cities Initiative, Healthy Places D-Lab, and Just City Lab.
- Other fellowship opportunities for summer and winter:
- Apart from the CSFP various Harvard units provide summer and winter opportunities relevant to MUP students including the Public Policy Summer Fellowship, Edward M. Gramlich Fellowship in Community and Economic Development, Ash Center Summer Fellowships, Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Initiative Summer Fellowships, and Presidential Public Service Fellowships. There is also funding for research travel (e.g. thesis data collection) or independent internships in Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, Tunisia, South Asia, several parts of Asia including South-East Asia, China, more on China and Taiwan, Japan, and the Ukraine and for work in housing. Please note these links just take you to some of the programs in particular centers e.g. the link is to internship funding when there may also be research funding.
- Finally GSD Career Services lists a number of internships and fellowships offered annually by local, state, and federal agencies.
Career Services
- Harvard-specific web sites:
- The college’s Career Services office has several useful web pages including one on the Community Service Fellowship Program (CSFP), for both summer internships in the U.S. and small overseas travel grants. Career Services also provides winter break externships and a career services library resources list specifically geared toward planning and urban design. Their web site also has more general advice.
- The GSD LinkedIn group, managed by Career Services, also has a Planning subgroup. To join the main GSD group you need to be enrolled at the GSD or an alumnus and follow the instructions on the Career Services web site. Then to join the Planning LinkedIn subgroup you sign into your LinkedIn account, go to the Harvard GSD group, then click “more” near the top of the page, then “subgroups”. The Planning subgroup will show up there with the option to join.
- Career Services hosts a jobs and employers database and can provide access for MUP students to the Harvard Kennedy School system (JACK).
- The Harvard Alumni Online Directory is available to alums and current students from a link on this page. The search feature is a bit clunky but if you put MUP in the “people” search feature you will find Harvard MUPs and some Harvard grads from other programs with MUPs from other institutions as well. To narrow it, choose to filter by the Graduate School of Design.
- Meetings and events:
- Staff at Career Services can also consult with you about career strategy, resumes, interview preparation, and the like. Email career@gsd.harvard.edu.
- If you would like to “drop-in“, Career Services staff do have such sessions in fall and spring. Email career@gsd.harvard.edu for more information.
- Both Career Services and HUPO host relevant events throughout the year. HUPO has salons throughout the year with local professionals as well as dinners with Loeb Fellows in the Fall. Other events at the GSD, or at the Kennedy School and open to MUPs include interview workshops, the Real Estate Career Day, and meetings with planning directors of the larges U.S. cities.