Department of Geography

This concentration prepares students for careers either wholly or partly involved in developing, training, or applying GISci methodologies. Career opportunities have been growing explosively in both government (local, regional, state and federal) and the private sector. Because of the current fiscal problems in local, regional, and state government we can expect employment opportunities to slow there. However, there are still many opportunities in the private sector with many different kinds of agencies. The long-term outlook for GISci-related careers is extremely promising.

To enhance your future career, you should spend as much time in the GISci labs as possible experimenting with our state-of-the-art software. This is because each Geographic Techniques course gives you about 30 hours of lecture and 30 hours of lab exposure. This is barely more than a single in-service training course offered by GISci companies, and the software has so many useful options one cannot explore them all in such a short time. (See laboratory use section.)

Elective & Cognate Courses
Students may select other courses in consultation with the Graduate Adviser.

Individualized Planned Area of Concentration
Students may also be able to plan their own program based on their career goals. However, since this will be a degree under geography, students must fulfill the required geography core areas and must also follow the graduate college rules.

Courses for All Concentrations
Several flexible courses may be used in any concentration area, when relevant to your program of study. These are individualized independent study courses or professional internships.