List of courses in First Year Term One

0731 04 URP 1121: History of Human Settlements

Course Overview

This course is designed to provide students ideas of planning in ancient cities and recent past. It will explain the evolution of human settlements in the course of the time and their growth. Planning was evolved and changed time to time to adapt the changing circumstances. It is important for planning students to know the history of city development and associated planning practices. It is a medium of learning from the past to avoid fault as well as the planning responses in different social, economic and cultural context. 

Course Objectives

The course will help students to gain knowledge in:

·       Evolution of human settlement and cities

·       Social, political and economic context of birth, rise and growth of settlements

·       Emergence, context and contents  of urban planning ideas

·       The history of settlements in Bangladesh and its context

Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)

At the end of the course, the students will be able to-

·       Identify how history influenced evolution of cities and settlement;

·       Demonstrate how social, economic, political and other factors influences birth, Flourishment and death of great human civilizations;

·       Build up key planning ideas and concepts in history;

·       Produce context specific planning and arrange the nature of human settlement.

0731 04 URP 1131: Geography for Planners

Course Overview

Geography is the study of where people, places and things are located and how they relate to each other. Students of this course are expected to learn and understand different aspects of physical and human geography. This course emphasizes the understanding of the role of geography and application of geographic knowledge in urban and rural planning.

Course Objectives

Students will achieve a comprehensive idea on different concepts of physical and human geography and their application in urban and rural planning.

Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)

After completing the course, students are expected to be able to:

·       Demonstrate the basics of earth system;

·       Identify the relationship among different features of geography;

·       Explore how different physical, human and environmental processes that influence the planning decision;

·       Apply geographical concepts and processes to comprehend and interpret our changing world.

0731 04 URP 1132: Cartography (Studio/Project)

Course Overview

Maps are the visual representation of the earth surface and spatially based phenomenon. This course introduces the concepts, techniques and guiding principles of different kinds map production, how maps impact our behaviour, the kinds of influence they have on our day-to-day lives, and how we use & misuse maps, and the technological evolution and its impact on the mapping sciences. The projects are designed to offer hands-on experience in cartographic representation, graphic design, and map production.

Course Objectives

The objective of the course is to bridge the gaps effectively between cartographic theories and cartographic practices to achieve sound cartographic understanding and skills and become proficient in its basic theory, operations, and applications.

Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)

After completion of this course, it is expected that the students will be able to:

·       Apply the basic cartographic theory in analysing geographic features;

·       Align, design and produce a map;

·       Comply the benefits and limitations of some common map projections, and the fundamental importance of scale;

·       Demonstrate good cartographic technique regarding map layout, required elements, and visual variables.

0731 04 ARCH 1154: Architectural Drawings and Graphic Design (Studio)

Course Overview

Professional planners must be able to communicate their design concepts through graphical means. Use of hand and technical drawings, colour renderings, computer modelling and graphic layout design all are vital means of communication with councils, development authorities, developers and communities. To boost this communication knowledge and skills on graphics as well as ability to be creative and proficient in producing works that are graphically well presented are paramount. This course would introduce undergraduate planning students to different concepts and techniques on use of graphic elements, colour and science of composition and student would gain competence in drawing conventional architectural drawings manually.

Course Objectives

The course is designed to achieve:

·       the importance and scope of graphics in urban planning;

·       elements of graphics and the key principles of using these elements in graphical composition;

·       conventional architectural drawing;

·       students’ ability to produce and read architectural drawings at plot and site scale. 

Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)

Once completed students will have the abilities to:

·       Reproduce their knowledge of colour, composition and software skills;

·       Demonstrate their ability on architectural drafting;

·       Draw and interpret the conventional architectural drawing at plot and site scale.

0311 04 ECON 1157: Principles of Economics

Course Overview

The purpose of this course is to provide student with basic understanding of the principles of microeconomics and macroeconomics.  At its core, the study of economics deals with the choices and decisions that have to be made in order to manage scarce resources available to us. This course aims at providing planning students with the foundation to economic systems, theories and terminologies.

Course Objectives

The course will help students to gain understanding and knowledge in:

·       How and why economic decisions are made and how they affect one another in the economy

·       Major microeconomic and macroeconomic issues

·       How the economy behaves at the individual and the aggregate levels

·       Economic problems 

Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)

At the end of the course the students will be able to-

·       Explain economic problems;

·       Identify how individual economic agents make rational choices given scarce resources and will know how to optimize the use of resources at hand;

·       Understand some simplistic economic models related to Production, Trade, and the Circular Flow of Resources;

·       Analyse and apply the mechanics of Demand and Supply for Individuals, Firms, and the Market;

·       Apply the concept of Elasticity as a measure of responsiveness to various variables.

·       Classify various market structures;

·       Produce macroeconomic policy suggestions.

0611 04 CSE 1162: Basic Computer Application for Planners (Lab.)

Course Overview
This course provides students with the essential concepts, principles, and techniques of computer application for preparing reports, data processing and report presentation. This course will mainly focus on the application of Microsoft Office tools to equip students for future writing and presentation requirements for completing the BURP program.

Course Objectives

This is an introductory course in computer applications. It will help students to develop skill to prepare report and presentations in computer aided form.

Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)

At the end of the course the students will be able to:

·       Write report by using Microsoft Word;

·       Prepare database using Microsoft Excel;

·       Analyze database using Microsoft Excel;

·       Understand mathematical computations;

·       Present report using Microsoft Powerpoint.

0232 04 ENG 1171: Communicative English

Course Overview

The course is designed for the first year students of Urban and Rural Planning Discipline. Students of this course are expected to learn the basics of communicative English to develop their skills for writing research papers in their professional career. This course has been designed as part of the foundation course package.

Course Objectives

This course is designed to:

·       help students learn about the major skills of English language and their proper applications in everyday life

·       develop students’ communicative competence 

Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)

After completing the course students are expected to be able to:

·       Comprehend the basic sentence structuring;

·       Combine the sentences;

·       Demonstrate the style of paragraph and essay writing;

·       Grasp the techniques of vocabulary.

0541 04 MATH 1173: Mathematics I

Course Overview

The course is designed for the first year students of Urban and Rural Planning Discipline. Students of this course are expected to learn the application of mathematics in Urban and Rural Planning. This course has been designed to develop the analytical skill of the students to analyze and interpret data in the later stage of their degree programme.

Course Objectives

The purpose of this course is to provide basics of mathematics for developing the skills of students for coping with statistics and application of other mathematical modeling in planning education.  

Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)

After completing the course students are expected to be able to:

·       Demonstrate the basic functions;

·       Understand the integral and differential calculus;

·       Comprehend the area of surface of revolution;

·       Apply knowledge of basic mathematics in the development of mathematical models for analysing planning problems and also predicting changes.  

0314 04 SOC 1175: Sociology for Planners

Course Overview
Students of this course are expected to learn and understand the social process of planning. The course is mainly focused at the key theoretical paradigms and their changes over time, and explains the implications of these paradigmatic shifts for urban scholarship, social policy and the planning practice.


Course Objectives

The general objective of this course is to achieve an overview and general understanding of the theories, methods and concepts related to the main social factors and processes involved in planning practice.  

Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)

After completing the course students are expected to be able to:

·       Understand and explain sociological considerations of different kinds of planning;

·       Identify underlying reasons of social stereotyping from global to the local perspective;

·       Explain the importance and process of social conflict minimisation in planning practice;

·       Classify different sociological concepts, social behaviours and institutions in urban, sub-urban and regionalized space;

·       Describe contemporary socio-political aspects of settlement spaces and its environments.