Geography

Overview

A wider world

All societies rely on relationships with each other and the physical environment. Increasingly these are fragile interdependences presenting intellectual and practical challenges. Our Geography course tackles these issues from a broad base, but also allows you to specialise.

Facilities and resources

We have one of the UK's largest geography libraries, containing around 17,000 books, journals and periodicals, and the Scott Polar Research Institute is an integral part of the Department. There are extensive computing resources, where you receive formal teaching in geographical information technology including geographical information systems and remote sensing, and the Department's intranet provides further online resources.

Fieldwork and travel

Fieldwork is an important part of our course and there are several one-day excursions and field trips in Years 1 and 2. A compulsory field class in Part IB leads to a piece of assessed practical work. Recent locations include Switzerland, Dublin, Berlin, Morocco and Mallorca. Some financial help is available but students are required to contribute to the cost of these field trips.

Your Part II dissertation requires basic research in the summer vacation at the end of your second year. Dissertation subjects and locations vary widely: some students travel abroad, others stay in the British Isles.

Many students organise their own overseas expeditions, often with the Cambridge University Expeditions Society. Some Department and College travel awards are available for this.

Careers

While Geography isn't directly a 'vocational' degree, Cambridge Geography graduates are trained to deal with multivariate problems, are skilled in information retrieval, data management and computing, and are used to working on their own initiative, and as such are highly employable in a variety of professions.

Our graduates enter many different careers, including industry and commerce, planning, teaching, finance, social work, environmental management and conservation, the media, politics, and the Civil Service.