CRPSA stands for City and Regional Planning Association, a Knowlton based club for all CRP majors or people in aligned majors that plan to go into the city planning field. This club hosts a variety of events from weekly study tables to a tour of Columbus. It was one of the first clubs I joined at OSU and has helped me meet people and learn things about the city and our major that I otherwise wouldn’t have.
The first official event in CRPSA that I attended was a walking/bus tour of some neighborhoods in Columbus. We took the bus from location to location and walked around at each stop to talk about the history and cultural significance of that neighborhood. Some of these stops included The Short North and the Central Business district. It was very interesting to see the concepts that we talked abut in my classes applied to a city that I know. Probably the best part of that tour though was the last stop at the North Market where we got lunch and chatted. Overall it was a really good experience that had a good balance of academia, fun, and socializing.
A lot of the leadership committee of that club is either graduating this year or next year, and they are looking for new students to take over their positions, something I am more than willing to do. I am looking forward to being more involved in the club, something about the first outing really connected with me. It reminded me a lot of a club that I was president of in high school, Diversity Awareness (as mentioned in my Artifacts tab), not necessarily in the content but more so the structure of the club. I am a strong believer that having friendships and conversations between classes/grades is one of the most underrated steps to academic success. I feel that that sort of connection allows for a lot of guidance both socially and academically, because who is there better to guide you than someone who has gone through the same classes and issues as you?
Besides offering social/informational events, CRPSA has also hosted things like volunteer opportunities and resume workshops, really being a good guiding source for everything you might want to do. With how small the city planning major is it is good to have this network of support and I am highly looking forward to helping organize events and the club alongside them very soon.
