[macsurf]

Good luck — I would stay with City and try to grab an assistantship or job.  I’m currently in school, finishing my 5th semester at UF – 2 more to go.  I work 2 jobs (one at the university and the other as a teaching assistant) and I still racked up $35k by having to pay two semesters out of state.  The other 3 semesters I have worked and had 9 credit hours waived, and given an in-state tuition waiver.  Granted I’m not at UPENN, but I doubt I would have landed a teaching assistantship there. 

Luckily, I have 3 years of planning and GIS experience, but I’m still nervous about the loans I owe.  At this point education comes second to paying my rent, tuition, and living expenses – well, not entirely, but pretty close.  Two years in and you seriously question why the h@ll it takes 3 years (at UF it’s 3.5) to get an MLA.  Total joke and waste of time — you can get a master of transportation engineering here with 30 credits and no thesis.  To put that in perspective – I’m taking 16 credits this semester as required per the curriculum.  I’m not knocking the program here, but LA education in general.  CLARB or whoever needs to climb out of their ivory tower and enter reality world.  I’m all for the extra year of school (whether BLA or MLA) if we’re getting signing bonuses when we graduate.  But unfortunately that’s not the case.

[macsurf]

I just completed an advanced GIS course based largely on using geostatistical analysis.  I think you’re using the term “metadata” incorrectly – what you’re thinking of is attribute data, metadata is information about the layer – who made it, when, what it is –  whether a shapefile, GDB, etc.

 

For the final project I modeled the location of elderly populations in Alachua County, Fl for the year 2030 in relation to proposed rapid transit routes.  The goal being to determine if this demographic will be served by transit.

 

I didn’t have to know a great deal about statistics, although I did have to brush up on the basics.  ArcGIS online guides and forums go a long way in helping you understand the various processes.  A copy of my paper is attached – look at the methodology and spatial model section to get an idea of some functions that were used.  Keep in mind that a large part of the paper is devoted to explaining the minute details of the modeling process. 

 

Ordinary least squares, spatial auto-correlation and geographically weighted regression are all things that you would probably become familiar with.  Most of these functions are more advanced than most any LA firm would care to bother with.  Economic consultants use these type of tools more regularly – according to my professor. 

 

 

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