Meet Christian J.

Planning Technician
Infrastructure Planning Department, Edmonton Public Schools

Summer 2021 (8 Month Term)

"My internship with Edmonton Public Schools has provided me with transferable work skills that will help me in my future studies and career.

As a Planning Intern, I was appointed to the Data and Planning team within the Infrastructure Planning Department. My roles and responsibilities were supporting planning and data collection for stakeholder engagement, collecting and analyzing demographic information, developing and maintaining information systems, analyzing data, monitoring land development relating to student enrollment and assisting the planning staff with special projects. Through this experience, I was able to briefly observe and make traffic recommendations which have steered me toward pursuing a future career in transportation planning.

The majority of my tasks were data-related, where I became more familiar with ArcGIS Pro than I had during my classes. This hands-on experience has provided me with employable skills as I became more advanced in GIS. The most important thing I learned from my internship is that data and planning go hand in hand. Many of my classes are theory-based, so analyzing and working with data took me out of my comfort zone. It was gratifying to see that the results of the data tasks I completed during my internship were used as evidence to make planning decisions related to student enrollment, school capacities and language/academic programs."

Christian is in his fourth year of a Bachelor of Arts degree with a major in urban planning and a minor in sociology. He is also completing a certificate in sustainability. In the future, Christian hopes to work within the transportation field.