“Geography is a sprawling, ragged, gorgeous, discipline. It ranges across the physical and social sciences into the humanities and the performance arts. It’s a discipline with a whole heap of different ways of doing what it does. It maps and models. Critiques and exposes. Drills and digs. Surveys and measures. Talks and hangs out with. Theorises. Analyses. Deconstructs. It’s a discipline that both knows what it’s about, and yet were you to ask a group of academic geographers what exactly it is that defines geography each would give a different answer. Stuffy and hip, it’s a discipline with too much difference for some and yet not nearly enough for others.” — Geoghagen, Latham and Leyland (2020), Area
If this description of Geography appeals to you, then come and join us.
You can have a school background in the social sciences, humanities and natural sciences; you do not even have to have studied geography at school.
You are passionate to learn more about pressing environmental issues, such as the climate emergency, extinction crisis, economic inequalities and social injustices. You want to make a difference and bring about positive change. Geography can give you the critical skills and thinking to help you make that difference, empowering you to respond to issues that concern you and concern the world.
With a geography degree you are highly employable. A 2020/21 report on graduate employment showed that of social science disciplines, geographers have the highest percentages in full-time employment fifteen months after graduation with about 75% in professional-level jobs. Many geographers go on to further studies, for example a professional qualification (e.g. a Law conversion course), a Masters degree, PhD or a Postgraduate Certificate in Education. The top professional jobs are business, teaching, marketing, town planning and construction, and human resources.
My favourite thing about Geography is how relevant it is to our lives. My studies cover everything from retreating coastlines to the legal geographies of ‘reproductive tourism’. I am constantly amazed at how geography, as a discipline, can provide a lens to examine anything – from food to fashion. I also feel very lucky to do a degree which exposes inequalities, locates injustices, and explores how to address these. It gives purpose to my lectures and supervisions -through my studies I am being equipped with the knowledge and skills to think critically and creatively about the world we live in. I hope I can go forward to use these skills and seek solutions to the key challenges our generation faces. — Riva, 3rd year.
Video courtesy of Time for Geography, please visit https://timeforgeography.co.uk/ for more open-access Geography videos.
Join The Cambridge University Geographical Society (CUGS) as they take a tour around the Geography Department (filmed in summer 2021).
Video Credit: Cambridge University Geographical Society