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What is geography at the UW ?

Geographers are trained to solve problems and issues. They use a wide variety of perspectives, one of which is spatial analysis - the study of where things are, how and why they got there, and what may affect that location in the future. Spatial analysis is a powerful tool which can serve as a common denominator in thinking about complex social, political, economic and cultural controversies.

The problems we face in today's world are not given to one-dimensional solutions, and thus may seem intractable....

  • distressing and incessant media tales of world hunger
  • declining environmental quality
  • hazardous-waste disposal
  • crime
  • urban housing
  • famine and overpopulation
  • urban transportation nightmares
  • ethnic and nationalist conflicts
  • and so on

In addition to providing geography students with the analytical tools and habits of mind to assess these problems, we also encourage our students to combine classroom study with internships, service learning experiences, apprenticeships, and research experiences to develop an integrated learning experience. This expansion of the learning experience not only gives students critical and analytical skills, but also offers a sense of hope that these daunting problems can be solved and that individuals can make a difference

By combining these extra-curricular engagements with coursework, majoring in geography "makes real" such contemporary issues as migration, inequality, world hunger, economic development, and land use decisions.

Key concentrations and questions that explore the linkages between key patterns and processes changing the world daily:

Citizenship and accountability to place: community, democracy

Scale (local to global), nation state, regional, urban-rural, etc.

Movement, migration and borders; disease; trade and transportation

Access to goods and services; social justice, identity, location, opportunity & constraint

Sustainable development and natural resource use

Globalization: information, transnationalism, restructuring, neo-liberalism

Representation: method, technology, epistemology, measurement, source & error, rhetoric

Geography offers five concentrations within the major:

1. International, Regional and Development Studies

This track concentrates on patterns and processes of

  1. human behavior
  2. political institutions
  3. social relationships,

with a special emphasis on the ways these forces shape the geographic organization of society.

Courses combine an interest in both locational knowledge (where people and their activities are located) and theoretical understanding (why they are located where they are).

Issues include the location and migration of people, the structure of cities, urban mass transportation, the growth of suburbs, changing workforce locations and demographics, the distribution of health care services (and other public services), and the importance of political boundaries, just to name a few.

Emphasis is on cities and regions in North America and the developing world. In addition to a basic understanding of broad relationships, considerable emphasis is placed on contemporary urban, social, and political problems often using the Seattle region as a laboratory.

2. Economic Geography

This track concentrates on the spatial distribution of goods, services, and other aspects of economic activities.

Main topics include: regional economic development and interdependence; the locational implications of economic and organizational restructuring; the role of innovation in the processes of industrialization; patterns of marine- and air-transportation, international trade and transnational corporations; regional and spatial analysis of economic activities in the private and public sectors, including the explosive growth of the service sector; resource use and environmental management issues; urban economic problems and processes; industrial interdependencies; and, policy implications of all of these issues at all geographic scales, from local to global.

3. Geographic Information Systems

Analytical skills developed in this track include

  • data gathering processing
  • analyzing
  • proficiency in spatial data definition and classification
  • database and spreadsheet manipulation
  • information literacy
  • critical thinking strategies for geographical problem-solving
  • GIS project management and workgroup collaboration
  • project development and presentation
  • bringing visualization techniques together with analysis and data management
  • testing various components of data quality and preparation of data quality reports
  • utilizing applications from several geographic interests and concentrations (land use, transportation, resource analysis)
  • data analysis with GIS operations and models
  • understanding of a wide range of geographic data (socio-economic, environmental, transportation
  • ability to prepare maps that communicate effectively
  • ability to work with census data
  • ability to use land use data (parcels, zoning)

4. Society and Environment

The examination, analysis and interpretation of the relationship between society and environment is one of the foundations of the discipline and continues to be a vital area for geographic inquiry.

This undergraduate emphasis examines the key debates on:

  • the causes and outcomes of environmental change and degradation
  • the paths to sustainable development
  • the collection of quantitative and qualitative data in diverse contexts
  • use of data in the formulation of human-environment interaction models
  • historical and contemporary societal responses to environmental degradation, health problems and resource consumption.

Four areas of focus include:

  • resource geography
  • cultural and political ecology
  • health and the environment
  • GIS and resource analysis.

This undergraduate emphasis aims to provide students with a grounding in the central conceptual approaches to understanding and explaining the society-environment relationships across differing geographic scales and contexts as well as gaining knowledge of the methodologies required in resource analysis and environmental management.

These complementary courses provide a coherent and integrated program of study assessing the complex inter-relationships between social dynamics and environments.

Special focus is placed on questions of scale in analyzing change at the local, regional, national, and global levels, and on understanding and explaining the interactions between ecological processes, environmental transformation and social processes and transformations in impoverished and affluent societies the world over.

Geographers attempt to:

  • explain and critique theories of global climate change
  • explain and explore the underlying relationships between and among such social processes as population, consumption, environmental quality, economic development, and to apply the perspective of political economy to these patterns and processes
  • evaluate various arguments on a given environmental issue as to the quality of their evidence, the adequacy of their response in addressing the problem, how various arguments differ, and which is the most compelling (and why it is the most compelling)
  • represent multiple and alternative viewpoints, strategies, values, and beliefs of different groups around a given resource issue

5. Urban Geography

This track concentrates on patterns and processes of:

  • human behavior
  • political institutions
  • social relationships,

with a special emphasis on the ways these forces shape the geographic organization of society.

Courses combine an interest in both locational knowledge (where people and their activities are located) and theoretical understanding (why they are located where they are).

Issues include the location and migration of people, the structure of cities, urban mass transportation, the growth of suburbs, changing workforce locations and demographics, the distribution of health care services (and other public services), and the importance of political boundaries, just to name a few.

Emphasis is on cities and regions in North America and the developing world. In addition to a basic understanding of broad relationships, considerable emphasis is placed on contemporary urban, social, and political problems, often using the Seattle region as a laboratory.

 

Geographers:

getting jobs
planning careers
at work

 
Go to: career resources uw geogrpahy dept. uw

To contact site compiler-editor: duttro@u.washington.edu
This file modified: March 22, 2000 kd