How to Become a Geographer

Geography is the study of our world and the multiple human and natural forces that interact to create our dynamic planet. While often foolishly associated with primarily map-making and cartography work, geography specialists could be working in a number of natural and social science positions too. The wide range of job availability to geographers has made them a much more valuable asset to our modern job market than ever before. This has led to many colleges and universities adopting geographic courses and major programs to meet the needs of those desired geography jobs. As such, anyone who enjoys looking at maps, making decisions and deducting things about our world, and researching and examining large loads of data would enjoy being a geographer.

Until recently in the 1990's, geography was not a large part of our modern American educational program. Though Europe and many other regions embraced the ideals of the discipline long ago, America has only recently idealized the subject nationwide. This can be illustrated by the fact that in a survey of general people on a city sidewalk from multiple backgrounds and ethnic groups, few people could actually point out where on a globe the United States was located. This geographic inadequacy only became more acute when other countries were questioned.(Association of American Geographers) It was only after this inadequacy became apparent that the government and various other groups decided to instill more geographic programs within our schools and colleges.

Now, there are many geography departments and sub-departments within a majority of colleges around the nation. Usually, when under a sub-discipline, geography tends to be in an environmental studies or earth science department. Under these, geography tends to be split among multiple options of specialized study, such as Urban and Environmental Planning, Physical Geography, Cartography and, possibly, a GIS, or Geographic Information Systems certificate. Each of these leads to specific fields located within geography and other allied disciplines, such as Psychology, Sociology, Anthropology, Atmospheric Science and Meteorology, Geology, Forestry and Biology. Geographers can be found working in numerous laboratories, colleges, and governmental agencies that were created to study any one of these other disciplines.

Some courses that are usually offered within Geography are introductory human and physical geography courses, remote sensing and map-making courses and upper-level, in-depth courses that delve into the various subjects taught in introductory courses. These include climatology, meteorology, natural hazards, urban and rural settlement, population demographics, political and religious geography, and even, in some places, the geography of sex. That being said, it is little wonder that geographic courses are often used to satisfy major general education requirements within the schools, resulting in huge introductory classes and moderate to small upper classes.

According to the Occupational Outlook Handbook (2008 edition), someone specializing in geography can expect an introductory salary of about $28000 to $35000 per year. This is a bit misleading, however, because very few people are actually employed as geographers. Most jobs attained by geographic majors lie under other names, such as economic researcher or geoscientist. Given such, the actual expected salary could vary by specialty within geography, generally with physical science geographers making more than social science geographers. Prospects for purely geography jobs are expected to grow more slowly than average with individuals holding higher degrees seeing more opportunities, but the wide-range of geography knowledge allows for tremendous growth overall, considering geographers can be hired on just about anywhere.

Our world is a complex place, one in which geography is quickly being realized to be one of the major sciences of our day. Whether you aim to study population shifts, criminal activity across the regions, ocean-effects on local climate scales, volcanoes and their effects or the spread of diseases in pandemics, geography has a promising appeal for you. Even if geography is not the career choice for you, you could use geography skills in life, and college courses to fill in requirements for your education. Put you best forward, enjoy the study of our world, and bring about the new century of geography!