PICK GEOGRAPHY AS A MAJOR: 7 Reasons
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.
8. Extremely Cool Technology!
Tags: geography, picking a major, science