2008 was the year of the blog for me. I started with Robot in the Woods, which was no failure, but lacked focus. Then 30 Second Words came along. It started as a sort of graduate school application advice site, but morphed into a Podcast site for students studying for their GREs by providing brief audio of a GRE word and an informal, sometimes humorous definition. At this point, fifty so-called “30 Second Words” have been produced, but not posted… so this blog is still viable. Then I started Open Source Geography as a placeholder for my thoughts about teaching and learning Geography, as I was hired as an Adjunct Geography Professor at Virginia International University.
In terms of priority, I am going to keep Robot in the Woods alive, but dormant for another year. For the 30 Second Words Podcast site, I will keep alive and actually post the Podcasts. I would have done that sooner, however, the Geography course took much of my time. Since I was not hired on for a second semester, I may let Open Source Geography to pursue other blogs.
There are two blogs I am anticipating starting in 2009. The key this year is focus. Open Source Geography did better than the others, but there was still no cohesive theme or niche. Therefore, I am announcing a photoblog called Shaker of the Day, dedicated to photos of my aunt’s 2500+ salt and pepper shaker collection. Also, for 2009, I will be creating a blog called “First Time Farmer” about my dreams of rural life.
Finally, I really enjoyed creating Amazon bookstores for these sites.
Paper Proposal Extension
Did anyone see the email from Professor Powell about Google’s new $10 Million Project called “The 10 to the 100 Project”? This is a program seeking ideas from people that improve the lives of as many people as possible. I am encouraging everyone to participate and can be used as your paper and presentation. Thedeadline for the Google proposal is October 20, 2008. Therefore, I am extending the deadline for the paper proposal to October 19, 2008. This will be an excellent opportunity to demonstrate your understanding of geographic inquiry while participating in a project that could have tangible benefits outside of the classroom. I will discuss further in class, but in the meantime, please review the following website:
Today I had my first class session as adjunct professor of Geography at Virginia International University. The class is very interesting in that they are entirely international. I have a Gambian, Nigerian, 2 Brazilians, 7 Mongolians, 1 Russian, 1 Croatian, 1 German, 4 Nepalese and 1 japanese student. One thing that makes this an interesting audience is that I cannot rely on previous lectures given to a primarily American audience at Piedmont Virginia Community College.
For example, when discussing the concept of vernacular regions, I brought up “The South.” A quick definition of a vernacular region is an area people recognize as part of their cultural identity. To Americans, the South is a familiar concept, typically referring to the area of the Southeastern United States. It references the American Civil War. These students did not have a concept of the American Civil War. This is a challenge, but not an impossible one. Since I more interested in teaching the concept rather than the South, I know when the students understand the concept when they can identify vernacular regions in their own experience. For example, most students could identify with The Middle East.
When discussing Place, Location and the Geographic Grid, students enjoyed using Google Earth as a teaching tool. Their first assignment was to find the latitude and longitude of their home. This is the first in a series of assignments requiring them to provide a descriptive account of the geography of their home.
The lecture itself was titled The Tools of Geographic Inquiry and included the following concepts:
Place
Location
Region
Functional Region
Formal Region
Vernacular Region
Space
Distribution
Density
Site
Situation
cultural landscape
scale
spatial association
cultural ecology
density
diffusion
We also discussed Yali’s Question in Guns, Germs and Steel, relating to wealth distribution in the world post 1492, which dispels the notion that wealth belongs to the Western world because of quality of the people and replaces it with the physical geographic factors contributing to European dominance.
My participation in this year’s ESRI conference is over, but I must say I had a blast. It was overwhelming and interesting and re-ignited my passions for maps and other cartographic and geospatial technologies.
However, being someone who keeps track of conspiracy theories, I have to say that whoever chose “Eye in the Sky” by the Alan Parson Project for a theme for the Defense, Homeland Security and Intelligence Showcase runs counter to advocates of privacy in an era of ubiquitous computing and geospatial technologies. This is exactly what Alex Jones is taking about when discussing the concept of “hidden in plain sight” and provides him with a bit more mainstream credibility.
Though it may be a memorable song, the last time I heard it was when I saw Alan Parsons at Wolftrap in 2002. It is no coincidence that the song should be playing, especially considering that it is not difficult to decipher its meaning. The song itself is about 1984-esque themes of Government Control and spying on the public. Though I agree that intelligence gathering and defense related matters are as important as matters of social justice, environmental quality and urban planning, the choice of that song was in very poor taste.
Am I wrong here? Consider the chorus:
Chorus:
I am the eye in the sky
Looking at you
I can read your mind
I am the maker of rules
Dealing with fools
I can cheat you blind
And I dont need to see any more
To know that
I can read your mind, I can read your mind
Perhaps I am biased, but I believe Geography is a great major with excellent career opportunities. If you do not know what to study in college, consider taking a Human Geography or Physical Geography course to get a taste for how interesting the science of Geography actually is. Also, don’t think of Geography in terms of what you may have learned in grade school about where places are. Geographers do ask “Where” but then they follow up with “WHY?” This is why I say “science” in that, unlike psychology, it is a discipline recognized as a science by the National Science Foundation complete with rigorous and accepted methodologies.
So here are some reasons to consider Geography as a major:
1. It is intellectually challenging, but relatively intuitive which is another way of saying that it is an “easy” discipline
2. There are more jobs than qualified people. Check out the Geography Jobs Clearinghouse if you need specific examples (http://www.gjc.org)
3. Like statistics, Geography can be applied to every discipline. I can make the case that the social and hard sciences rely on some sort of spatial reasoning.
4. The job market continues to expand and like #2 above the number of jobs outpaces the number of qualified applicants
5. Considering #2 and #4, its a field that continues to grow despite recessionary economic conditions
6. Again, because it is underlooked but a growing field, graduate funding in the form of assistantships (i.e., tuition waivers and paid living expenses) is typically available upon acceptance. Though I don’t have the statistics to support this statement, I imagine that the rate of graduate funding in Geography is the highest amongst all disciplines. I was not a stellar undergraduate, but gained acceptance and funding in all 5 master’s level Geography programs I applied to. With my overall undergraduate 2.9 GPA (admittedly with a 3.8 in Geography) I don’t think the same can be said for psychology or the hard sciences.
7. Finally, and back to my point, since Geography is at least tangentially ubiquitous in every field of the academy, you can choose topics that uniquely interesting to you and still increase your odds for a successful career.
