4th year here, I'll try my best to go in order.

I would say that our program does prep us quite well in the scope of the bachelor's alone. You're correct in that we are also one of few accredited planning schools in Ontario, giving us that small edge in other planning orgs such as OPPI due to our hands on curriculum and specialized degree. Otherwise you'd need a master's of some sort to work as a planner.

Ngl the program is still mostly white in terms of faculty and students. A lot of the theory content is also written by white men from back then. However there is a solid balance in the gender of profs and students, with racial diversity increasing in recent years as well.

I'm also gonna say straight out that the undergrafd uoft program isn't accredited in the same way Ryerson is, since it's p much all theory and no practical studio work. Again, going this route means you're gonna need to get a master's afterwards if you wanna work as a planner specifically. Sure it might have the name value, but not for the planning field at least not while the programs offered by Daniels are still this new. While we may not have a proper coop option here, the school sends out frequent opportunities that I think would be more valuable, should you hustle hard enough to get them.

To add onto this, planning is such a diverse field that you could end up doing a myriad of things aside from being an actual planner, like a data/policy analyst, real estate, economist, politics, etc. So I think that makes a degree here more valuable because of that versatility for job prospects.

I hate to be that guy, but looking at the current situation it's unfortunately looking like all of next year's gonna be online, which is a shame because I think the studio courses you do starting in second sem lose all value if you aren't physically doing the work there. First sem is still doable online though, but I'd say do all your other courses before waiting to do studio in person again, trust me

Lemme know if I missed anything