Undergraduate Prospectus 2010

Why geography?

Geographers study people and their physical environments and how economic, social and cultural life varies throughout the world. The subject bridges the physical and social sciences and humanities, and is studied at scales ranging from the local to the global. University-level geography is an exciting and challenging subject that provides unique insights into the character of our world and its problems, and equips you with wideranging and valuable transferable skills.

Why geography at Sussex?

• Excellence in research: all of our faculty are research active in their chosen fields of expertise. Geography at Sussex was rated as 13th in the UK for research in the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise (RAE). 95 per cent of our research was rated as recognised internationally or higher, and 65 per cent rated as internationally excellent or higher.
• Flexibility and choice: our degrees are designed to let you develop your own interests as you progress, the choice of subjects increasing with each successive year - and you can mix and match human and physical geography options if you wish.
• Unique field-trip opportunities: we place great importance on the development of practical skills and, to that end, currently offer one of the most ambitious choices of field-work destinations of any UK geography department. In recent years, our students have visited Arctic Canada, California, Kenya, Morocco, Vietnam, Thailand and the Seychelles.
• Great learning environment: our teaching and research facilities are first rate and in a great location. We believe that this combination makes for a distinctive and stimulating learning environment.

What sort of career could I have?

With their broad range of numeric, literary, practical and resource-management skills, Sussex geographers are well-equipped to enter a wide range of careers in the private and public sectors. Recent geography graduates have left Sussex to work in such fields as:

• overseas development (including aid agencies, charities and VSO)
• Geographical Information Systems (GIS), remote sensing and cartography
• Civil Service, Parliament and local government
• ecological and environmental consultancy. Employers have included Natural England (formerly English Nature), the Environment Agency, and various water companies
• social research and political lobbying
• urban planning and surveying
• marketing, advertising and journalism
• accountancy and banking
• many of our graduates have gone on to study for higher qualifications (including Masters and DPhils/ PhDs) in a range of vocational and academic disciplines, or embarked on further training to enter the teaching or nursing professions.

How will I learn?

At Sussex we deliberately vary the mode of delivery of courses so that you experience different learning styles. Lectures and seminars might be combined with workshops, field work, tutorials or practical classes; student-led seminars are features of some courses, as are small-group tutorials. Faculty also make extensive use of computer facilities, often making slides, audio podcasts and other lecture resources available for student download from dedicated e-learning course websites.

Similarly, modes of assessment vary and - depending on the course taken - can include learning diaries, practical reports, in-class tests and small-group presentations, in combination with more conventional essays and unseen examinations.

What will I achieve?

• Knowledge and understanding of modern geography, its main research interests and current issues.
• The ability to situate your geographical knowledge in its wider philosophical, social and practical context, allowing you to understand the nature of contemporary world problems, such as underdevelopment, ethnic conflict, urban social exclusion, and the global warming debate, and the policies designed to deal with them.
• An understanding of the nature of the relationships and processes that shape the human and physical characteristics of places and how such places become connected to and differentiated from each other.
• Experience of research-project design, field-work skills, data collection and analysis in human, physical and environmental geography.
• Skills in written and oral communication, IT (for example, the use of GIS), numeracy, cartography and learning techniques.
• The ability to learn and reflect, abstract and synthesise material, reason clearly, judge evidence and evaluate theories.