Plan your path

GCSU students who wish to see the world may now have the chance to study it – via the new geography major – before they travel.

According Dr. Doug Oetter, geography professor and coordinator of the new degree, geography is the “study of distribution of human and natural processes across the earth.”

Oetter has had the goal of adding a geography major since he became coordinator of the geography department in 2003.

“We need students who can understand these big scale shifts, analyze special patterns, and see what humanity is doing to its home planet,” Oetter said.

The process of adding the major took two years as it had to have a letter of intent, a proposal and 80 pages of justification passed through administrative offices. The justification explained that “the world is changing and students need to be prepared for a changing world,” Oetter said.

“It’s not easy to offer a major. We needed to have enough classes and at least three professors to provide more diversity of classes,” Oetter said.

Some students fell in love with geography quickly. Gary Smith, a senior history and geography major, took a geography class as a core requirement and liked it.

“I kept taking classes and then added minor and kept taking classes and unofficially declared a major this summer,” Smith said.

Geography degree candidates will take classes in applied human geography, physical geography, regional geography and special techniques such as mapping and special analysis. Students will also learn about Geographic Information Systems, a computerized mapping tool connected with databases.

“GIS is used everywhere to create maps and data and make the best decisions,” said Dr. Amy Sumpter, professor of geography. “Skills in GIS can get students jobs easily.”

Students will also be required to take a geographic research seminar and partake in an internship, study abroad program or thesis.

The skills that geography majors can learn are applicable to rural and urban planning, city government, local and international travel, pursuing law, civil service, forest management and other environmental jobs.

“(Geography) skills are indefinite,” Sumpter said. “It is nice and valuable for a college graduate to have these skills.”

To keep the major, there needs to be five majors this year and must increase by five next year, steadily increasing the number of majors each year. Oetter has no doubts about keeping the major as he said there are five students ready to declare the major now, and students in the past confided in Oetter that they would have declared a geography major if it had been offered.

A geography major at GCSU appears to fit in nicely with the liberal-arts education mission of the school. Geography majors learn skills that stretch across broad disciplines, opening doors for areas of research and studying the world.

“Geography is a nice alternative to history, sociology or political science,” Sumpter said. “Geographers emphasize spatial understanding of these processes which defines the discipline. It is a unique way of looking at the world.”

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Feb 19 2010. Filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry