Geography

Geography is one of the most genuinely bridging disciplines in higher education, integrating the study of physical environments with the human societies that inhabit and transform them. It is the discipline that asks how the world's physical processes, from climate systems and river dynamics to tectonic activity and soil formation, interact with the human patterns of settlement, economic activity, migration, culture and political organisation. This integrated perspective gives geographers a distinctive analytical position, able to engage with both the natural and social dimensions of the most complex contemporary challenges.

At Queen's University of Belfast the BA Geography programme offers a distinctive human geography-oriented pathway that emphasises social science and humanities research skills, including ethnographic investigation, discourse analysis and archival research. You will study how culture, space and power interact in the production of places and landscapes, how population and economic processes shape urban and rural environments, and how social and environmental research can be conducted with rigour and care. You have the freedom to choose from thematic modules that reflect the department's expertise across a range of geographical research specialisms.

Geography graduates work across urban planning, environmental management, international development, the civil service, consultancy, education, journalism, NGOs, the charitable sector, research, GIS and spatial analysis, transport planning and policy. The combination of analytical rigour, field skills, quantitative and qualitative research methods, and broad social and environmental awareness that geography develops is valued by employers across a remarkably wide range of fields. Many graduates pursue postgraduate study in geography, urban studies, planning, development studies, environmental management or GIS, building more specialist expertise on the broad undergraduate foundation.