What is Geography?
Geography is an exciting and dynamic subject, making it pretty unique. It looks at both the physical structure of the planet and the social structure (i.e. how we affect our environment and how it affects us) in the past, present and future.
Geography is classed as a natural science, a social science and also has elements of ancient history! Geography can be divided into two main branches:
Physical Geography: is a branch of earth science, which looks at the natural elements of the world, including the atmosphere, land and oceans etc.
Human Geography: is a social science that studies how humans interact with the planet and covers things like population growth, migration, how urban and rural settlements develop etc.
Geography graduates have some of the highest rates of graduate employment, this is because geographers deal with the natural world and how we behave in it. Meaning their jobs can take them everywhere
Geography is great for any kind of career that involves the environment, planning, or collecting and interpreting data. Popular careers for people with geography qualifications include: town or transport planning, surveying, conservation, sustainability, waste and water management, environmental planning, tourism, and weather forecasting.
The army, police, government, research organisations, law and business world also love the practical research skills that geographers develop.
Because geographers learn about human and population development, geography can be useful for jobs in charity and international relations too.
Geographers have done some pretty important things for the human race, including charting new territory, developing maps (cartography) and measuring distances to help us get from A to B long before we could simply take a picture of an area from space. We wouldn’t have Google maps without them. Imagine…
Find out more about our department: