MURP student Connor Zielinski: Building in Access

Connor Zielinski had a fleeting thought in 2020 that graduate school might be his next step. 

But as he finished his senior year of undergraduate, the world changed with the COVID-19 pandemic, and his plans shifted toward immediate action. 

"Every year, I’d ask myself, do I go back to grad school?" he says. "I didn’t know if I was actually going to be able to be a student again." 

For the next several years, Zielinski immersed himself in disability services and political campaigns, roles that served as a real-world classroom. Early on in his career, learning about how the systems in the world actually functioned helped him realize that access and representation weren’t accidental. They are either built into systems, or they aren’t.

This fall, driven by a desire to move from navigating systems to actually shaping them, he enrolled in the Master of Urban and Regional Planning program at the Humphrey School of Public Affairs.

From Social Work to Systemic Design

Zielinski grew up in Eagan, Minnesota, and spent most of his life in the Twin Cities. His journey into public service began at the University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire, where he initially enrolled in the social work program. He was driven by a desire to apply systems-based approaches to social challenges, but while in the program, he developed a specific interest in the relationship between quality of life and the built environment.

An internship with Wisconsin Conservation Voters proved particularly formative. There, he advocated for the city of Eau Claire to remove all lead pipe infrastructure from its water system—a project that highlighted the literal pipes and pavement that dictate community health. After graduating with a degree in social work and a minor in political science, he worked on state-level political campaigns in Minnesota, then joined Lifeworks, a Twin Cities-based nonprofit.

At Lifeworks, he stayed for several years, starting as a direct support professional before taking on more responsibility in various roles. Working alongside people with disabilities gave him a particular lens: he saw how communities were designed, who could move through them freely and who couldn't, and how much of that came down to policy implementation at the local level. “I started thinking about what my career could look like if I took more active steps to shape it,” he says.

A trip to London in 2024 with his girlfriend changed things. While there, he experienced a more organic city built around walkability and a world-class transit network, which made him wonder why most United States cities lacked those basic structural advantages.

“We immediately missed it when we got back,” he says. “I started connecting all those pieces. What would it be like to be on the other end of what these planners are advocating for and be able to actually help make that systemic change?”

Shaping the City He Grew Up In

Once Zielinski decided to pursue graduate school, the Humphrey School and the Master of Urban and Regional Planning program quickly became the clear choice. The program’s reach was part of the draw. Transportation, land use, housing, and environmental policy: these weren’t abstract categories to Zielinski. They were the systems he had watched shape the lives of the people he served in his previous professional chapters.

Zielinski wanted to give back to the Twin Cities community he grew up in, and the Humphrey School put him exactly where he wanted to be: working directly on projects with the Metropolitan Council—the regional body whose planning decisions shape how communities are built.

“The fact that the Twin Cities has a really strong metropolitan planning organization is a huge boost to the program,” he says. “They’re working with the University of Minnesota’s Center for Urban and Regional Affairs to filter down projects to students. Not all universities are going to have a very active regional organization that is specifically interested in what students have to add.”

The cohort has been one of the unexpected rewards of his first year. This year's class is the largest in the program's history, and the range of backgrounds in the room has shaped his learning. “I feel like I’m learning just as much from my cohort members as I do from my classes,” he says. “They’re able to provide more context, and I hope I’m able to do the same, especially around community accessibility from my work in disability services.”

A School for 10,000 Interests

Zielinski came into the program imagining a traditional municipal planning role. His internship search has since complicated that picture, in the best way. The Humphrey School enables students to stick to one track or forge their own "concentration."

“There are going to be these municipal jobs, but also opportunities with the Metropolitan Council, or nonprofits doing advocacy or legislative work,” he says. “I came in with 10,000 different interests, and I’m hoping I can start to whittle those down.” Through a diverse array of classes and exploring the wide variety of internships available in the Twin Cities, he has started to do just that. This summer, he will be working with the City of Oakdale as a community development intern, where he aspires to develop the technical skills necessary for a career in planning.

For Zielinski, coming to the Humphrey School has meant something concrete: a path back to the Twin Cities he grew up in, and the tools to help shape it. “I worried about transitioning back to being a student after getting used to a 9-to-5,” he says. “But I’ve been challenged in a way that feels really positive. It’s a challenge that feels very rewarding.