Journey to the end

The study tour has made me open my eyes, and reflect on what I've seen. As you can walk past something a thousand times but it's not until you stop and reflect on what you have seen until you get an understanding for it and appreciate it for what it is. By doing this blog, it has forced me to reflect on what I've seen past conceptions and ideologies.

Learning about the conditions that the mine workers where subjected to in a lecture and then being put in them are two complete different things, as you can't fully appreciate until you are put in the same confinements. I was overwhelmed by the courage of the human spirit as the conditions they worked in sufferance in where appalling, for ends meet. We could barely last an hour underground in the cramped conditions and not even 5 minutes in the tunnels that they spent 8 hours a day in.

From doing the group work it has enabled me to research the history and creation of the Sheffield Hallam University.  At the start I didn’t think I would be interested as what does the history of the university have to do with planning? Well I was pleasantly surprised during my research I was able to find out about the twists and turns of the development of the Psalter campus and the redevelopment, which required me to understand some of the different planning practices such as their affordable housing strategy. From reading the planning officers report it was interesting to see the different justification they used when addressing the polices and how the history of the site related to the ability for redevelopment elsewhere.

The hardest part about the group work was picking a topic, as we were all trying to please everyone and it was hard to find a topic that interested everyone. However by working in a multifaceted group it opened my eyes to a different way at looking at the information which gave me a greater understanding on the work we were doing. Group work was definitely the most stressful and challenging work that we had to do at the university but once you have the end result it was all worth it.
- Jacinta Morrissey (Bachelor of Urban, Rural and Environmental Planning)