Geography major

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Ok... what should I look out if I decide to major in Geography in university/college? (From a prospective Aspie geography student in uni)

Last edited by ruennsheng on 19 Mar 2009, 2:16 am, edited 1 time in total.

i'm an NT geography major from pre-computer days (late 70s, early 80s). even then, geog majors didn't get jobs without master's degrees. most folks ended up doing something else. my advice is take all the required courses but specialize in something technical (as opposed to cultural geography) such as G.I.S. or cartography or surveying or forest management or urban design or transportation planning. think EMPLOYMENT.
i ended up working in travel right out of college. it was fun and i got to travel alot for free but the industry never paid well at all and, with internet travel, is long dead now.

Any future for Geography majors?

And what should I take note if I want to take a Master's (or PhD) degree in Geography? And what are the stuff like urban design/planning or GIS all about in university?

Depends on the university..
Where do you want to live and work? Are you really in Singapore? I would love to visit there!Look for employment opportunities for geographers, cartographers, urban planners and GIS experts near where you want to live and see if there are any civil or government jobs. Call or visit the Geog departments at the school you want to attend and ask them what kinds of jobs are available to their graduates. Sometimes schools tailor there program to the local job market. As far as being Aspie in the program, you should be fine. Just find a few trusted classmates who you can work with for projects. What aspects of Geography interests you? Are you planning on taking Geology also? Not many jobs for Geog. PhDs except for Univ. professor, at least here in the USA. For your PhD, you would need to specialize in some area of Geog and publish your research often so pick something that really interests you. Right now, I'm very interested in the Pacific Garbage Patch. I'm also interested in ecovillages and sustainable communities. Unfortunately, I don't work as a Geographer (maybe I need to go back to school) but if I did specialize, I might pick one of those topics for my PhD.

runnsheng,

I am a geology major so I cannot vouch for what MSc's or PhDs do for geography, but I will vouch for GIS. It is getting increasingly harder to study any kind of earth science or urban planning without being well-versed in ArcGIS. I strongly advise you to take GIS courses: works wonders as an element in your CV or resume down the road.

I don't know if I have helped or not but I hope I have.

~CGKings317

(Another geography major here)

I don't know what the demand is in Singapore, but demand for GIS and urban planning people in the U.S. is increasing very fast, due to the infrastructure overhaul and Obama's stimulus plan.

Indeed... GIS is so important that I even had GIS lessons for high school recently, as the teacher used ArcGIS for his lessons on urban geography as part of a pilot exercise by Singapore's local universities. I am more than happy to experience GIS for educational uses, and I think I am really excited to see the demographic and land use changes of any given city. I will hope to learn more about GIS when I go to college/university.

And yes, I study in a local public high school in Singapore, which is named Pioneer Junior College. And in Singapore, the National University of Singapore (NUS) offers geography majors while the National Institute of Education (NIE) offers teacher training courses in Geography too.

In Singapore, there is a stream of demand for geographers who are proficient in GIS, along with perhaps marketing as well as teaching. Other than that, though, I see that there is virtually little demand for geographers here. Perhaps...

The whole thing about life being a journey and enjoying the journey, and learning feel and texture, which we as Aspies can get good at.

That is, don't overplan the outcome. Each semester, have courses that you can both enjoy and get good grades at.

Get your schedule as early as you can and then fine tune it. I mean, make changes, largely based on your gut instincts. Make changes (probably) this summer, the week before school starts, and the week of. That's a lot of changes, but that's what I recommend AND start pre-studying in a way that works for you and that you enjoy. Take one extra course, and then drop your least promising course within the first two weeks. When I went to two different American universities in the 1980s and early 90s, you could drop a course two and a half weeks into the semester and get a full refund! And it would never show up on a transcript. Use this. To some extent, and I'm very much into learning for its own sake, but to some extent, school is a game. Learn to play it well.

And be open to the times when people are open to intellectual topics.

I am working on my Master's in Geography. Geography appears to be quite "hot" now. A far better major for understanding the world than, say, English lit., the problems of the world such as poverty, terrorism, and globalism, all have a spatial quality to them. In addition GIS has made geography a must-have course.