Arts Work Experience Alumni Interview: Emma Zurawell
Pictured: Emma Zurawell.
Like most undergraduate students, Emma Zurawell was unsure of how her skills and knowledge she gained from the classroom would apply in a real world context. It was this thought that motivated her to join Arts Work Experience (AWE) back in 2018.
"More than anything, AWE gave me confidence in my abilities and motivated me to apply for positions after graduation, because I knew I'd be able to handle the work if I were to get the job," Emma said.
After graduating from the U of A in 2020 with a B.A. in Urban and Regional Planning, Emma successfully navigated the transition from student to employee. She credits this successful transition to her time with AWE.
"I can say with 100 per cent certainty that I would not have gotten my current position if it hadn't been for my AWE co-op experience with the City of Edmonton," Emma said. "All the things I learned during my time with the City, combined with the knowledge I gained from my time in AWE, helped me stand out as a strong candidate."
Before Emma got her current job as a Municipal Planning Intern with the Town of Stony Plain, she was an AWE student in search of work experience. One of the first things she learned was how the job search process works. “Being in AWE taught me that looking for a job is definitely like a full time job,” she recalls. “There’s so much detail and craft that go into your resume and cover letter, it requires a lot of effort and time!”
All that effort paid off. After a successful interview, she was hired for an eight-month work term as a Planning Co-op Student with the City of Edmonton. Her main role was to work on rezonings and land development applications in the established and developing neighborhoods (outer ring) of the city.
“I definitely felt like I was in over my head at the beginning,” Emma said. She wasn’t familiar with some of the technical terms the other planners used around the office, but her colleagues encouraged her to ask lots of questions and were very understanding and supportive.
Emma Zurawell presents the daily life of an urban planner at the City of Edmonton during her eight-month co-op.
Emma enjoyed being able to shadow other professionals and contribute to their projects. “Even though I was hired to work on rezonings, I was encouraged to reach out to the other departments and get involved with the projects they were working on, so that introduced me to different sides of planning that I hadn’t known about before and allowed me to gain more in depth experience.”
During her co-op with the City, Emma heard about the Municipal Internship Program, which is a provincial program that hires recent graduates to work in municipalities where they can gain first-hand experience in municipal government. Emma was drawn to the opportunity and decided to apply after graduation.
“The program appealed to me because it provided lots of opportunities for professional development and I knew I’d get a more varied work experience in a small municipality than I had previously with the City.”
When writing her application for the Municipal Internship Program, Emma reflected on her previous experiences to help her compose a strong resume and cover letter.
“Everything I learned about planning and municipal government during my AWE co-op was really useful when writing my application and helped me stand out as a strong candidate. I’d gotten resume help in the past so I knew how to put together a strong resume that addressed all the keywords in the job posting and I knew that an application really comes down to marketing yourself well,” Emma recalls. Since she had already been through the interview process a few times, she knew how to prepare effectively.
Emma found that having the co-op notation on her degree was a great conversation starter during interviews. “People would always ask me about it, which was nice because it gave me the opportunity to tell them all that I’d gained from participating in AWE and about my previous work experience.”
In September 2020, Emma was hired on a two-year contract as the Municipal Planning Intern for the Town of Stony Plain through the Municipal Internship Program. While the City of Edmonton has hundreds of planners, Emma is now one of three in Stony Plain! “Our team is very small, but mighty. We work on everything in planning that you can think of: subdivisions, redistrictings, master plans, bylaws, and some projects here and there.”
Emma says her day to day work with the Town of Stony Plain is much more comprehensible after her previous work experience with the City of Edmonton.
“I really do find myself recalling my experiences at the City of Edmonton a lot. When things come up at work, I’m not a stranger to them. I think, oh I handled something like this in my co-op, I can handle this!”
Since her supervisors are aware that she will be moving on to a new job after her contract is up, they are supportive of her skill development and encourage her to participate in professional development courses in order to meet the qualifications of prospective future jobs.
Emma is already searching for her next job and is looking forward to learning new sides of planning in the future.
“I think it’s important to look out for future jobs and see what they require so you can prepare in advance and work on those skills through professional development training.”
This article was written by Claire Wasel, the 2021-22 Arts Work Experience Communications and Program Support Intern. Claire is in her fourth year of a Bachelor of Arts (Honors) degree in Psychology with a co-operative education designation and certificates in Applied Social Sciences Research and Psychology Research. Claire is looking forward to graduating in 2023 and attending graduate school in the future.