Geography
By Emma Prest
Published: 15 August 2004
What do you come out with? BA, BSc or MSci; MA or BSc in Scotland.
Why do it? Because you're good at it at school. And you like it. It helps you to understand the world around you, particularly hot-button issues such as deforestation, global warming and asylum-seekers. Maybe you don't really know what to study and are looking for a broad subject. "You do not need to specialise early on. There are many options - either science or the softer route looking at social issues and politics. You can pick and mix. " says Dr. Seraphim Alvanides, geography lecturer from Newcastle.
What's it about? Durham's geography degree balances human and physical geography. It runs a BA and a BSc in Geography plus a new Geography and Cities degree from this autumn. You get enormous choice in your second and third year. Bristol has a three-year BSc or a four-year MSci. Students start to specialise at the beginning of their second year. Edinburgh has 24 options after year two. UCL offers a BSc and a BA. There is a range of modules from in the second and third years from Latin American Development to reconstructing past environments. Newcastle offers the opportunity to spend a semester in Europe at ten different universities as part of the ERASMUS programme. In the first year at Royal Holloway half of what you study will be physical geography and the other half human. You go on to specialise in the second and third years. Royal Holloway gives students the chance to spend their third year on VSO (Voluntary Service Overseas) or possibly in North America or Australia.
How long is a degree? Three years; four years in Scotland.
What are the students like? Idealistic. They want to learn about the world they live in and they want to make it a better place.Roughly half women, half men though most universities tilt to slightly more women. Mix of scientists and arts people or those who combine the two. At Bristol three-quarters come from a science background, one-quarter from social sciences. It's the other way in most other places.
How is it packaged? Bristol has 65 per cent examination, 20 per cent dissertation and 15 per cent coursework; Edinburgh and Royal Holloway have 50:50 exams to coursework/dissertation. At UCL it is roughly 50:50, with more exams in the final year.
How cool is it? Cooler than it was, particularly now that the environment is the new politics. And it's more popular than it used to be.
What A-levels do you need? Most universities are pretty easy-going. Students tend to have geography A-level. If you take the BSc, most places like to see a science A-level.
What grades? AAB-ABB at Bristol; BBB at Edinburgh (Scottish Highers of ABBBC or BBBBB), Newcastle and Sheffield; BBC -BCC at Royal Holloway. University College London will take less if students have potential, they require ABB-BBC (at least B at geography A-level). AAB at Durham; BBB-CCC at Queen Mary.
Will you be interviewed? Yes at UCL, Durham, Queen Mary and Westfield; not at Newcastle, Sheffield, Royal Holloway and Edinburgh. Sometimes at Bristol.
Will it keep you off the dole? Should do. A few go into something geography related, like cartography, computer applications of geography or planning. Some go on to postgraduate study. Others do market research, accountancy, journalism, the civil service, or whatever takes their fancy.
What do students say? Mark Whittlestone, 20, studying for a BA Geography and North American Studies at Sussex. "The field trips are good. We're going to Morrocco next year. Other options were Vietnam, Las Vegas, L.A. and the Seychelles. The good thing about geography is that it is quite open. You can study anything from science and stats to humanities. The GIS in the computer section is interesting. The lecturers are really enthusiastic and we have great links with development studies here."
Where's best for teaching? Excellent scores were awarded to Canterbury Christchurch University College, Cheltenham and Gloucester College of Higher Education, Coventry University, King's College London, Liverpool Hope University College, Open University, Oxford Brookes University, Queen Mary and Westfield College, University College London, Birmingham, Bristol, Cambridge, Durham, University of East Anglia, Exeter, Lancaster, Leeds, Manchester, Nottingham, Oxford, Plymouth, Portsmouth, Reading, Sheffield and Southampton.
Where's best for research? Bristol, Durham, Open (geography), Royal Holloway, UCL, and Edinburgh scored 5*; Cambridge, Hull, Leeds, LSE, Loughborough, Newcastle, Nottingham, Queen Mary, Sheffield, Southampton scored 5; Bath, Birmingham, East Anglia, Exeter, King's, Lancaster, Leicester, Liverpool, Manchester, Middlesex, SOAS, Oxford, Plymouth, Reading (geography), Sussex, Aberdeen, Dundee, Glasgow, St Andrews, Swansea, Aberystwyth, Queen's Belfast got a 4.
Where's the cutting edge? At Sheffield it's deserts, water and hydrology, population, electoral issues, gender, consumption, regional government. At UCL it's environmental change, the environment in society and migration. At Durham it's cultural and social geography, development studies, political economics of geographical change, quaternary environmental change. At Queen Mary it's urban violence and alternative trading systems. At Edinburgh social and cultural geography, social inequalities, housing and health, global geomorphology and environmental modelling. At Bristol, glaciology and climate change, hydrological modelling, urban and cultural geography. At UCL it's cultural geography, population and migration, coastal geomorphology and GIS. Newcastle is strong on rivers, regional policy and development, globalisation and tourism. Royal Holloway is hot on third world development studies, environmental change and cultural and social geography.
Who are the stars? Professors Robert Allison, Ash Amin, Gerald Blake, Tim Burt, Ray Hudson, Ian Shennan and Ian Simmons, all at Durham. Professors Charles Pattie, David Thomas, Harvey Armstrong and Rob Ferguson at Sheffield. Professor John Adams, expert on the nature of risk; Jacquie Burgess, attitudes to environmental change; Rick Battarbee, all at UCL. Professors David Smith, Sarah Curtis and Michaela Benzeval, Queen Mary. Professors Susan Smith, Mike Summerfield, Liz Bondi and Sarah Metcalfe at Edinburgh. Professors Peter Haggett, Nigel Thrift, Paul Cloak, Julian Dowdeswell, Malcolm Anderson - all at Bristol. Professors John Lowe, Clive Gamble and David Simon at Royal Holloway.
Added value: Durham organises field trips to the Canary Islands; UCL to Tunisia and New York; Sheffield to Los Angeles and Las Vegas; Bristol to Paris, the Swiss Alps or Majorca; Newcastle to ireland or Iceland for physical geography or Poland for human, all first years go the the Northumberland countryside. Royal Holloway runs fieldtrips to the south of Spain in the first year and trips to Kenya, the Lake District and Glasgow the year after.
Related courses: If you are interested in physical geography and the environment, UCL offers a degree in Environmental Geography. You can also combine geography with anthropology and economics. At Newcastle you can do a degree in geography and surveying and mapping science or geography and planning or Geographic Information Science, alternatively combine it with maths or statistics. At Royal Holloway you can study geography with archaeology or geology.
