Course overview

Geography is about understanding our place in the world, about understanding how we live through the interconnectedness of the global to the local. Geographers place great importance in understanding how space, place and environment shape the economic, social, cultural and political processes that influence our lives and our planet. These processes, whether they occur at a very local or the global scale affect the lives and life chances of every one of us alive today and those who will be alive in the future.

They affect who has what, where, and why, and are responsible for the major inequalities that present an urgent challenge to human societies, wherever they might be located. They also affect our management of the earth’s resources and physical environments. You will also study the environmental processes that impact on all our lives and may even threaten our very existence. Specifically, issues of rising sea levels, flooding, carbon footprints, environmental hazards, global warming and climatic change will play a prominent role in your studies.

An important characteristic of these degrees is the way in which you can design your own pathway, mixing and matching subjects from both human and physical geography. Your unit choices will be flexible, enabling you from year two onwards to either study both physical and human geography subjects or specialise in one side of the discipline only. The degree that you graduate with (a BA or BSc) will depend on these unit choices.

If you are interested in the world about you, its physical nature and characteristics, the relationship between human societies and the future of our planet, the interconnectedness of nations and the social, cultural, economic and political outcomes of an iniquitous global economy, then these degrees are for you. If you wish to study aspects of physical or human geography only, you may want to consider our BSc (Hons) Physical Geography or BA (Hons) Human Geography degrees.

Course content

Year one

In the first year of your studies, you will be introduced to the breadth of geography and we will help you acquire the necessary academic expertise such as communication, reading and bibliographic skills. In our Geographical Information Systems (GIS) units, you will also receive exposure to the application of information technology to geographical study and data presentation.

Fieldwork units will enable you to engage in the ‘real world’ that you are learning about in your class-based units. They will also show you how to use equipment to measure the physical landscape and interpret your findings. You will study some of the most pressing environmental issues that human societies face today, such as global warming and climatic change. Your other core courses in the Foundations of Human Geography and Population, Resources and Environment provide the basis for your later option choices.

Year two

In your second year, you will be able to choose subjects that you have developed an interest in. You may continue your interests in, for example, environmental issues and management, geomorphology, soils, meteorology, biogeography, conservation, urban geography, social geography, geographies of development and the developing world, historical geography and GIS. Option choices include:

• Spatial Data Acquisition
• Introduction to Climatology
• Geographies of Development
• Social and Cultural Geography: Changing Cities
• Physical Environmental Hazards
• North American City
• Social Geography: Geographies of Well-Being
• Introduction to Soils, Ecology and Biogeography
• Geographical Data Modelling
• Introduction to Geomorphology

You will also take an overseas field class, providing you with the opportunity to develop your knowledge and understanding of other places and environments. Recent venues have included Barcelona, Malta, Berlin, south east Spain, Finland and Zanzibar. Each trip has a distinct flavour and your location will depend upon your disciplinary interests.

Year three

In your final year, we offer a number of options that are more specialised. In Human Geography and GIS, you may for example study the following units:

• Geographies of Health
• Development Discourses
• Rural Geographies
• Cultural Geography
• Workplace Geographies
• North-East USA: Regional Economic Development
• The North-South Divide in Britain
• Implementing GIS
• Advanced Geographical Data Analysis
• Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing
• Environmental Management

On the physical geography side, a number of units on offer involve the real world application of physical geography, enabling you to undertake further advanced fieldwork.

For example, selecting Climatology and Ecology will take you to the Cairngorms, while Applied Soils studies are undertaken in the Benelux countries. Within the unit on Applied Coastal Geomorphology there is opportunity to experience coastal problems at first hand. Again, option choices include:

• Coastal Environments: Processes and Forms
• Fluvial Geomorphology
• Mountain Climates
• Quaternary Environmental Change and Reconstruction
• Applied Coastal Geomorphology
• Applied Soils
• Experimental Geomorphology

You will also complete a dissertation during this year, which reflects your particular interests and draws upon your skills and abilities gained throughout your studies. It is also an opportunity to obtain valuable research skills. To support this activity, you will have the opportunity to join staff in their field research areas. Recent research expeditions have travelled to arctic Finland, the US Rockies, Iceland, Malta as well as sites within the UK.

Teaching and assessment

We pride ourselves on our student-centred approach to teaching. As a department, we are keen to keep abreast of new developments in teaching and best practice. We are also committed to a ‘learning through doing’ approach and therefore incorporate fieldwork into our curriculum wherever we can.

Throughout your time with us, we will provide you with the support, enthusiasm and encouragement that you will need to reach your goals. You will engage in a number of class-based teaching formats, from the large lecture to student-centred seminars, workshops, groups tutorials and one-toone tuition where needed. All students are assigned a personal tutor, who holds regular small group tutorial sessions so that you can discuss topics with other students. Our tutorial programme runs through all three years of the degree and in your final year you will also have a dissertation supervisor.

You will be expected to acquire 120 credits each year and by the end of your degree you should have obtained a total of 360 credits. Although these are most often acquired by studying consecutively for three years, the credit structure is flexible and allows you to take a break from your studies at any point.

To obtain your degree class classification, you will be assessed in a range of ways, some traditional (such as exams and coursework essays), many more innovative (such as portfolios, contributions to electronic discussion forums, web page design, posters, projects and verbal presentations). Mostly, you will be assessed on your individual work, but sometimes you will also be assessed on group work. The breakdown of examination assessment versus coursework assessment will depend upon your choice of units, but it will typically be something in the region of a 40:60 split (exam: coursework).

Career prospects

This course has an excellent reputation, with a wide range of public and private sector employers, for providing graduates with both specific geographical skills and knowledge, as well as more general personal and transferable skills. As a result, our graduates are successful in finding good, permanent and rewarding employment in a wide range of vocational situations, including environmental and business management, public service (including health authorities), local authorities and teaching. They have gone on to work for environmental consultants, GIS specialists, the Environment Agency, Ordnance Survey, local authorities and a host of employers throughout the world of business and commerce.

An increasing number of our students also choose to go on to further academic study or professional training, both within the University and elsewhere.

Facilities and features

The department has a number of specialist facilities containing state-of-the-art equipment to support learning and teaching activities. Our students have access to:

• physical geography, GIS and photogrammetry laboratories that contain some of the best resources anywhere in the UK
• laser survey technology
• industry-level photogrammetry equipment
• an environmental simulation cabinet
• modern laboratory instruments for the assessment of natural waters and materials

You will be encouraged to use all these advanced facilities where appropriate in your studies.

In addition, you will have access to high specification computing facilities and to our newly extended University Library. Open from 8am to midnight every day during term-time, it supplies a variety of information to help with study and research. The University has also invested substantially in electronic resources. There are thousands of electronic journals and ebooks available, which can be accessed across the University campus, at home or wherever there is an internet connection.

Studying abroad

We have exchange links with a number of universities in Europe and beyond, so you can take up the opportunity to study abroad for a few months. Current links include the Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona (Barcelona, Spain), Universite du Havre, (Le Havre, France) and Adam Mickiewicz University (Poznan, Poland).

Entry requirements

View all the entry requirements for BA (Hons) Geography for the academic year 2013/14 (opens in new window).