Undergraduate study: Geographical Tripos

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Introduction

Undergraduate Studies in Geography is one of the largest single-honours Departments of Geography in Britain: about 100 undergraduates are admitted to read Geography every year.

Geography at Cambridge involves undergraduates in a wide range of lectures, practical classes and field courses, organised around a three-year course (called the Geographical Tripos) which is divided into three parts, with an examination at the end of each year.

In effect, the Tripos system is a compromise between the continuous assessment favoured by some universities and the emphasis placed on 'Finals' by others. Each examination is self-contained, with a separate result at the end of each year: there is no averaging out at the end. This means that it is easy to combine one subject with another, because you can change Triposes between one year and another.

Whether you join us for one, two or three years, direct from school or college, or having studied part of another Cambridge Tripos, this brochure will describe for you the kind of Geography we teach throughout our undergraduate course and, just as important, the way we teach it.

First year

In your first year you study for five examination papers, which correspond to the main streams that run through the rest of the Tripos. There is no choice at this stage: we think it important for everyone to begin with the same basic grounding. This allows us to introduce you to new areas of the subject that you won't have met before and which you might want to study in more detail in your second or third year.

The outline of the courses, which are currently in the process of being revised for the academic year 2006-7, is as follows:

People, Space and Geographies of Difference

• Globalization: global finance and global culture.
• Post-Fordism and the new world order.
• Social geography: welfare and inequalities.
• The impact of global cities

Historical Geography

• Europe and the 'world system': the cultural and historical geography of the development gap.
• Modernization in the European core.
• Diversity and division: colonialism and indigenous societies in North America.
• Colonies and empire in the making of the African and Asian periphery.

Society Environment and Development

• The emergence and evolution of the modern environmental movement.
• Conceptual and practical issues in environmental economics.
• Development and global inequality
• Ecological concepts of resource, using forests as case study.

Environmental Processes

• Atmospheric processes
• Hydrological processes
• Marine processes
• Ecological processes - plants, animals and ecosystems

Environmental Change through Time

• Timescales of Quaternary environmental change
• The cryosphere and environmental change
• The atmosphere and environmental change
• The oceans and environmental change
• Tectonics and environmental change

Skills and methods

In addition to these 5 courses, all students follow a course in Geographical Skills and Methods. This course involves lectures, laboratory and computer practicals and fieldwork, and covers the following areas:

• Numerical Methods
• Survey and Interview Methods
• Documentary and Archival Data
• Spatial Data (GIS and Remote Sensing)
• Field, Laboratory and Desk-based Skills for Understanding the Physical Environment

Second year

In the second year you begin to specialise (if you want to), but we expect you to maintain an interest in the discipline as a whole. This means that you have to choose four papers, but these must include at least one paper from each corresponding human and physical geography group. You also have to write an essay on Geographical Ideas and Methods, presented in the form of an open book examination, which builds on the foundations laid in the first year. In addition, you will start to prepare for your dissertation.

In brief, the second year course looks like this:

Geographical Ideas and Methods

(a) Assessed by open-book examination

Philosophies of the natural sciences, social sciences and humanities.

(b) Assessed by practical exercises

These vary from year to year, but include topics such as:

• Field and laboratory methods in Physical Geography
• Surveys, interviews and qualitative methods in Human Geography
• Geographical analysis of historical sources
• Quantitative techniques in Geography

Fieldwork

All students are currently expected to participate in a week's field class. Recent venues have included: Crete, Mallorca, Malta, the Algarve, Morocco and S E Spain. A piece of submitted work produced on the field class forms part of the assessment in the second year.

Students are required to make a contribution to the costs of these courses.

Group A - Human Geography

• Cities
• Understanding the Economy - Geographies of Contemporary Capitalism
• Development
• Geography and Public Policy
• Culture and Society

Group B - Physical and Environmental Geography

• Earth Observation
• Glacial Processes Landforms and Sediment
• Environmental Hazards
• Catchment Systems
• Biogeography and Biogeomorphology

Third year

In the third year you can choose whatever combination of papers you like, so that you can either specialise further or maintain a balance across the subject as a whole. You have to select four papers from those offered in a particular year, and you also have to research and write a dissertation of no less than 8,000 words and no more than 10,000 words: here too the choice of subject is up to you.

In the third year, fifteen papers are offered in each year. The actual papers offered vary each year, but the following provide some examples of papers recently offered:

The Restructuring of Britain

• The changing geography of post-war Britain: theoretical ideas
• Restructuring of industry, economy and society
• The state and political intervention: regenerating Britain

The New Europe

• Europe as Place
• Integration and Resistance
• Inclusion and Exclusion
• Re-imagining Cities

Human Geography III

• Details to be announced

The Social Engagement with Nature

• Origins of cultural constructs of nature
• Constructing nature in the Pacific
• Nature in non-western cultures
• Contemporary cultural constructs of nature

State, Land and Resources in Sub-Saharan Africa

• State and political cultures
• The political ecology of land
• African forests: state, corruption and contestation

State and Society: Latin America and South Asia

• Nationalism, state formation and territory
• Social movements and civil society
• Indigenous peoples
• Current development issues

Historical Geography of the AIDS Pandemic

• Nature
• Meaning
• Social relations

European Historical Demography

• Marriage and household formation
• Mortality regimes
• Demographic Transition Theory: its current status

Human Geography of the Arctic Regions

• Scandinavia
• Siberia and the Russian Arctic
• Arctic Canada

Fluvial Systems

• Channel morphology and processes
• Channel dynamics and management
• Modelling fluvial systems

Environment, Policy and Society

• Environmental policy: conceptual issues
• Contemporary environmental issues

Morphodynamics of Large-scale Coastal Systems

• Morphodynamics of sandy shores
• Morphodynamics of barrier islands and delta complexes
• Morphodynamics of coral reefs

Volcanology

• Eruptions and their products
• Eruption records
• Volcanism in the Earth system
• Volcanic risk management

Glacial Environments

• Mass balance, hydrology and dynamics of ice sheets
• Ice sheet sedimentation in marine environments
• Ice sheet dynamics

Quaternary Environments

• Quaternary climatic variability
• Landscape development
• Quaternary change in the North Atlantic region
• Reconstructing Quaternary environments

Dissertations

As part of the third-year examination, students submit a short dissertation (not exceeding 10,000 words) on a subject of their choice. Members of staff and research students are available for preliminary advice on appropriate topics and procedures, and there is some supervision during the third year.

The basic research is undertaken during the summer vacation at the end of the second year: this is an opportunity to put into practice what has been taught in lectures and practical classes. The subjects and locations of dissertations vary widely, as a few titles from recent years indicate:

• Study of volcanic sulphur dioxide clouds using ultra-violet spectroscopy
• (De)constructing senses of place: heritage and conflict in Wordsworth’s Grasmere
• The politics of piracy: Barbary Corsairs and the growth of the British Empire 1700-1850
• From mythology to science: a study of volcanic hazard perception at Mount Etna, Sicily
• Global commodity networks: follow that ethical bean
• State and space in the lives of Kampalan Street children
• Rock on Tommy - studying climbers’ effects on Yosemite vegetation
• ‘We’ll show those city bastards how to fight’: a social geography of domestic football hooliganism

Some students choose to do the research for their dissertations abroad, whilst others stay in the British Isles.

Funding for dissertations

Some funding is available from the University, via the Department and a number of travel awards for which there is open competition amongst undergraduates. In addition, some Colleges are able to make travel awards. However, the potential costs of fieldwork have to be carefully considered at the planning stage to ensure that the dissertation is feasible.

Fieldwork

Fieldwork is a fundamental element in the tradition of Geographical research and teaching, and field trips form part of some practical exercises in years one and two, with trips, for example, to the North Norfolk coast, to Wicken Fen, to local woodlands, and to important Quaternary sites in East Anglia.

In addition, there is a compulsory one-week residential field course for second year students held during the Easter and summer vacations. These field classes are an essential building block for undergraduate final year dissertation research, both in terms of inspiring students in their choice of topics, and in teaching specific field research skills. Field class teaching objectives and focus are diverse, reflecting the interdisciplinary nature of the subject, reaching from the physical sciences through the biological sciences to the social sciences and humanities. Associated with this course is a piece of assessed practical work.

Recent locations for the second year field trips include Crete, the Algarve, Spain, Malta, Mallorca and Morocco. Some specialist field courses are also associated with second or third year lecture courses; locations have included Dublin, the French Alps, and the south-west of Switzerland. Students need to make a contribution towards the cost of residential fieldwork, which is also heavily subsidised by the Department.

Outside the formal teaching programme, many undergraduates organise their own overseas expeditions, often under the auspices of the Cambridge University Expeditions Society, which authorises around 25 expeditions every year. A number of University and College travel awards are also available to Geographers.

Some common questions ... and answers

How much work is involved in studying Geography at Cambridge?

Terms at Cambridge are much shorter than at other universities, but are used intensively. Each academic year consists of three terms of eight teaching weeks. Teaching occupies the first two terms, together with the first two weeks of the third term: the remaining six weeks are given over mainly to revision and examinations. You can expect to have 7 or 8 one-hour lectures each week, though this is only a rough guide: much depends on which papers you are taking and how they are timetabled.

In the first two years you will also have laboratory, practical classes or workshops each week. In the summer vacation after your second year you will work on your dissertation. In all three years you will normally have three one-hour supervisions per fortnight. You will also have to keep up with the reading for each course, but unlike some universities you are not required to study a subsidiary subject.

Is the course arts-based or science-based?

All first degrees awarded by Cambridge are Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) degrees - even to students studying Natural Science, Engineering or Medicine - so the name itself doesn't mean very much. In practice, Geography is what you make it: the teaching programme is broad enough to include those whose primary interests are in humanities, social sciences or natural sciences; or all three.

What school/college subjects are most useful?

It really doesn't matter what subjects you have studied before coming to Cambridge to read Geography. It isn't even essential to have studied Geography (although most students will have done so). If you are particularly interested in Contemporary Human or Historical Geography, then Economics, English Literature, History and Sociology are useful supporting subjects; if you are interested in Physical Geography, then Biology, Geology, Mathematics and Physics are useful; and wherever your interests lie, a working knowledge of a foreign language will help you to keep in touch with developments in what is, after all, an international discipline, and to gain a greater insight into the courses in regional geography offered in the second and third years.

Q: Do you provide a list of recommended reading for intending applicants?

A: We don't actually issue a reading list for prospective applicants but suggest that they maintain a strong interest in an area of geography that appeals to them. This might come from a range of sources such as newspapers and current affairs journals, magazines like New Scientist, The Economist, National Geographic, the Geographical Magazine and Geography Review, and even novels. The nature of the discipline of geography is so varied that recommending just a few books would be limiting.

What is CUGS?

CUGS (Cambridge University Geographical Society) is organised and run entirely by undergraduates. Its activities include lecture meetings at which members have the opportunity of meeting Geographers from outside Cambridge, plus social and sporting events.

College admissions

Since Cambridge is a Collegiate University, applications are handled by individual Colleges and not by Departments. You can either apply directly to a particular College (as do the vast majority of applicants) or make an 'open' application, in which case your application will be assigned to a College by the Cambridge Admissions Office. It is also sensible to write to College Admissions Tutors to obtain further information. If possible, try to visit a couple of Colleges, by booking a place on one of their Open Days: dates are given in the Cambridge Admissions Prospectus. In general, all Colleges select candidates on the basis of references, interviews and results in public examinations. Virtually all Colleges normally admit Geographers, the exceptions being Peterhouse and Pembroke.

College teaching

Like all subjects at Cambridge, Geography involves a mix of University and College teaching. Each College has its own Director of Studies in Geography who looks after your academic progress, making sure that you keep on top of the course. College teaching is collaborative, not competitive: everyone finds different parts of the course difficult, and you can learn a great deal by listening to the ideas of others. For this reason College teaching revolves around supervisions, where a small group of students discuss a topic with a supervisor.

You are usually expected to have written an essay for each supervision. This is a valuable discipline, but it is intended to be a springboard for discussion: supervision essays do not count towards your final examinations. This means that you can afford to be more adventurous than might otherwise be the case: you can read beyond the syllabus, try out your own ideas, and reach your own conclusions. Supervisions are led by experts in the field, and since no College has a monopoly on these, you can expect to be supervised by people from many different Colleges while you are here. In this way, not only do you have the chance to tackle questions at the frontiers of research; you are also exposed to different teaching styles, ideas and opinions.

Which college?

Almost all Cambridge Colleges that admit Undergraduates will accept applications for Geography. In some years certain Colleges have more Geography students than others, with the pattern fluctuating from year to year in part according to the quality of the applicants they receive. In recent years the following Colleges have made a strong commitment to Geography: Christ's, Clare, Downing, Emmanuel, Fitzwilliam, Girton, Homerton, Jesus, King's, Lucy Cavendish (mature women), Magdalene, New Hall (women), Newnham (women), Queens', Robinson, St Catharine's, St Edmund's (mature students), St John's, Selwyn, Sidney Sussex, Trinity Hall.

Colleges: Numbers of geography students and fellows in 2006

College	Number of Geography undergraduates in all years of study in 2006	Number of fellows in Geography	Director of Studies from another college*
Christ's	10	2	x
Churchill	8	1
Clare	5		x
Corpus Christi	5		x
Downing	15	3
Emmanuel	24	3
Fitzwilliam	29	4
Girton	25	3
Gonville and Caius	3		x
Homerton	13	1	x
Jesus	14	2
King’s	6		x
Lucy Cavendish	1		x
Magdalene	9	2
New Hall	9	1
Newnham	14	2
Queens'	6		x
Robinson	18	1
St Catharine’s	25	4
St John’s	19	2
Selwyn	8		x
Sidney Sussex	21	2
Trinity	5		x
Trinity Hall	5		x

* Not taking account of patterns of leave

Departmental facilities

The Library

The Department has one of the largest geography libraries in Britain. The Library contains about 17,000 books, adding around 500 each year. There is a separate Periodicals Room containing about 10,000 bound volumes and more than 150 series of working papers and research reports. Major journals and series from all over the world, covering all areas of the subject, are received. In addition there is an extensive collection of offprints, reports and other ephemeral material. The Departmental Library also forms part of a wider network. The University Library, being a copyright library, receives copies of all British publications in addition to those books and journals purchased from around the world.

Many other Cambridge libraries are useful to geographers, including: the Marshall Library of Economics, Seeley Historical Library and the Central Science Library, as well as those of the Scott Polar Research Institute, Department of Earth Sciences and the Centre of South Asian Studies. The catalogues of the Department and many other libraries can be searched using an online link to the Union Catalogue of College and Department Libraries. In addition, those Colleges which regularly admit significant numbers of geographers usually have extensive holdings of geographical books and journals.

Computing, Automated Cartography and Remote Sensing

Computing resources play an important part in courses at undergraduate, Masters and Ph.D. levels. Formal teaching covers basic information technology, Geographical Information Systems and Remote Sensing. The main teaching laboratory consists of 40 Pentium PCs with printer and projector. There are also two separate smaller teaching laboratories for GIS and Research student use located in the Sir William Hardy Building. These facilities provide opportunities for undergraduate and postgraduate students alike to develop 'hands on' skills in geographical information technology. In addition the computing facilities provide the framework in which the Department carries out many of its research activities. To this end most staff members have PCs in their offices, which may be used for anything from computational modelling of ice flows to textual analysis or statistical processing of census data.

Physical Geography Laboratories

The Department is particularly well-equipped to support teaching and research in coastal, fluvial and glacial geomorphology, and diverse aspects of Quaternary studies, with a wealth of field survey equipment ranging from powered boats to ice drills and echo sounding equipment. Environmental modelling of all kinds is also supported by in-house design and fabrication of electronic instrumentation for use in the field. The recently refurbished Physical Geography Laboratories, together with the Environmental Chemistry laboratories, are extensively equipped to allow hardware modelling of fluvial and coastal processes and sophisticated analysis of physical and chemical properties of soils and sediments. There is also a new Teaching Laboratory located in the adjacent Sir William Hardy Building.

Cartographic Unit and Map Library

Cartographic Unit

The Cartographic Unit produces original, high quality, maps and diagrams to support teaching and research. In-house Mac and PC computer platforms enable images to be imported , edited and exported in a variety of graphics and GIS software packages and file formats.

Products range from campus plans, road maps, conference material, book and atlas figures, posters, wall maps, brochures and research reports.

The service is available to the academic and research community within the department and, by arrangement, to staff from colleges and other university departments in Cambridge.

Map Library

The Map Library houses a reference collection of world mapping, atlases, tide tables, gazetteers and cartographic texts. This includes a wide range of UK topographic cartography, from the Ordnance Survey First Edition quarter sheets of the 1830s to the latest open access Explorer 1:25,000 series, together with UK thematic maps at various scales. A range of commercial UK street plans, administrative maps, and European medium scale topographic maps are also stocked. There is a comprehensive coverage of Cambridge and East Anglia.

The atlas collection includes national and thematic atlases, with themes such as transportation, demography, economics, climatology, history, archaeology and war.

Student profiles

Careers for geographers

No Cambridge degrees are vocational in the strict sense: even graduate engineers, lawyers and medical students have to undergo further training before they practise. But employers are very obviously attracted to graduates who have a good knowledge of the wider world and a genuine interest in economic, political, social and environmental issues; who are trained to deal with multivariate problems and to grasp their wider implications; who are used to writing essays and completing research projects on their own initiative; and who are skilled in information retrieval, data management and computing.

For these reasons, Cambridge Geographers find that a very wide range of career opportunities is open to them. On average, around 25 per cent find jobs in the financial services sector, including banking, stock-broking and accountancy; 16 per cent continue in their formal education, either studying for higher degrees or taking the postgraduate certificate of education; 14 per cent proceed into various management jobs, including the Civil Service (both home and overseas) and private and public sector corporations; and 10 per cent enter marketing and advertising. The University Careers Service assists students in finding suitable employment, and two of its careers advisers take a special interest in Geographers.

Careers in Geography, published by the Royal Geographical Society

Become a Teacher, published by the Geographical Association

Further information

Admissions

You can get a good overall impression of both City and University from the Cambridge Admissions Prospectus.

This is available online at http://www.cam.ac.uk/admissions/undergraduate/ .

Paper copies can be obtained from:

Cambridge Admissions Office,
Kellet Lodge,
Tennis Court Road,
Cambridge
CB2 1QJ

01223 333308

Departmental contact details

If you have any other queries arising from the information in this brochure, please contact us:

Undergraduate Office Administrator,
Undergraduate Office,
Department of Geography,
Downing Place,
Cambridge CB2 3EN
United Kingdom

Telephone: +44 (0)1223 333385
Fax: +44 (0)1223 333392

E-mail: undergraduate.enquiries@geog.cam.ac.uk