What to Expect
There's lots of variety in a geography program. Students choose from amongst
many majors, such as human geography, urban geography and political geography.
Cindy Krell's program at the University of Texas included courses in
geology, ecology, environmental resource management, urban planning, remote
sensing, GIS, architecture, music, art, language and religion.
In a typical day, Krell attended lectures and labs, read, reviewed notes
and studied with friends. Reading took up a lot of her time. She says
this is one thing many undergraduates are ill-prepared for.
Assigned homework is at a minimum, so students need to be self-directed.
Krell found herself spending a few hours a day and about half the weekend
reading and studying.
"Geography is not about memorizing capitals and mountain ranges," Krell
says. If you are considering geography, you may want to ask yourself if
you're interested in the well-being of the earth and all that live on it.
Andrew Davidson took graduate studies in geography. He became interested
in digital image processing during his undergrad degree. His subfield is GIS
and remote sensing applications in biogeography.
"Undergrads get to choose from a variety of field courses," says Davidson.
But he adds that time management is a big issue.
How to Prepare
Reading course descriptions will help high school students get a better
idea of what geography is about. "Follow the track that interests you personally,"
says Krell. "Working hard toward an uninteresting goal can be a miserable
existence."
"I wish that I had had more computing experience coming into my
degree," says Davidson. "Most science courses have some computing component.
Many problems undergrads have are with computer-related learning."
You may want to test your inquisitive mindset. "In geography, we deal with
space and spatial relationships. Noticing spatial patterns and asking yourself
why things look the way they do helps build an inquisitive mind," says Davidson.
Attending conferences is a useful way for students to network with
people in their chosen field and build contacts for research projects.