Planning is about changing the places within which we live. How we can transform and improve our cities, towns, villages, neighbourhoods and communities. It affects our everyday lives and is an exciting discipline to study at university.A planning degree provides students with the knowledge and skills to be able to make decisions that shape the processes of growth and development. We currently face many urban challenges – attracting investment, creating jobs, protecting the environment, energy policy, housing supply, transport links, providing local amenities – and planning affects how these things happen. Therefore, as future planners you will have an important role to play in shaping the future.Planning is a broad subject matter and planners perform different roles relating to the natural, physical, economic, social and cultural environments that we live in. Given this, planning offers a wide range of employment opportunities. Studying planning will equip you with the knowledge to understand how cities, towns, villages, communities and neighbourhoods function and operate, and then have the skills to make decisions that shape how they grow and prosper.