Learning Goals for the Major in Geography
The geography curriculum allows students to specialize in one of three tracks: Global Culture, Economics and Society; Environment; or Geographical Techniques. The Geography program has general learning goals for the entire program, and specific goals for each of the three tracts, as listed below.
General Learning goals
- Use a spatial perspective to critically examine how human and physical components of the world interact
- Understand how geographic concepts apply to social and environmental justice
- Acquire frameworks, methods and spatial models to identify and explain key geographical issues with attention to multi-scalar processes and connections between people, places, and environments
- Understand how a geography degree can support career prospects
Global Culture, Economics, and Society
- Synthesize and examine critically a range of cultural, economic and societal issues, particularly those connected with globalization, geopolitics and processes driving environmental change
- Assess structural inequalities throughout the globe (e.g. systemic racism, wage gap, austerity)
Environment
- Understand and apply the terminology and frames of reference used in physical and social environmental research
- Identify and explain key physical and social environmental issues (e.g., environmental justice, climate change, and land-surface transformation).
Geographical Techniques
- Demonstrate the fundamental principles and concepts of geographic technologies (e.g. geographic information systems, remote sensing) used in the acquisition, processing, and analysis of spatial data
- Locate, access, manipulate, display and communicate spatial data effectively
- Acquire frameworks and methods for analyzing how the uses of geographical technologies are power-laden practices