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FHEQ level

This course is set at Level 6 in the national Framework for Higher Education Qualifications.

Course Aims

This programme aims to produce a well-rounded professional geographer i.e. someone who has:
1. The ability to describe and analyse, both spatially and environmentally, the characteristics of places and the interactions between them;
2. A firm understanding of how relationships and processes result in the observed characteristics of places;
3. A developed awareness of the myriad diversity of the earth's surface as a context for human habitation, economic production and social life;
4. Provide the training and experience (e.g. field work, lab-based study, GIS etc.) needed to achieve the above.
5. Provide the necessary preparation for employment in a wide range of contexts or for further study and a career where geographical skills and understandings will be applied;
6. Enable an engagement in life-long learning, study and enquiry and an appreciation of the value of education for society and the environment.

Course learning outcomes

1. Understand a) the nature of the relationships and processes (contemporary, historical, biophysical) that shape the human characteristics of places (e.g. demographic, economic, social, cultural, political...), and b) how places become differentiated from one another as reflected, for example, in patterns of wealth inequality at the international and sub-national scales.

2. Demonstrate the ability to apply this knowledge and understanding to contemporary problems such as those of third world underdevelopment, inter- and intra-national ethnic conflict, and urban social exclusion, and to the evaluation of policies designed to solve these problems.

3. Be able to explain the characteristics of specific places through reference to a body of locational and ecological concepts and theories using either a) locational analysis which focuses on the explanation of the spatial patterns of the phenomena being studied, or b) ecological analysis which focuses on the explanation of the in situ relationships between phenomena located at the same place.

4. Possess sufficient experience of the inter-relatedness of phenomena in geographical space to be able to visualise those phenomena as elements of either socio-spatial or socio-environmental systems.

5. Achieve a critical and self-reflexive understanding of human geography that a) incorporates an awareness of the situatedness of knowledge and the provisional status of accepted theory; b) recognises the significance of representations of people and places for an understanding of social and spatial behaviour; and yet c) develops the bases upon which competing ideas and theories about the nature.

6. Interpret qualitative and quantitative geographical and environmental data, demonstrating numeracy, basic statistical skills, IT skills (e.g. spreadsheets, databases; word processing, email and www), and an ability to abstract and synthesise material from different sources.

7. Demonstrate a good knowledge of how maps are produced and used (cartographic skills).

8. Integrate the skills of the cartographer with those of the computer scientist, specifically to relate spatially-referenced data with place-attribute data through GIS (geographical information systems), remote sensing and related methods.

9. Demonstrate field investigation skills in both environmental and human geography (e.g. historical and contemporary human landscape evolution, land-use and built-form mapping and questionnaire surveys).

10. Reason clearly, critically and logically, and analyse problems and provide solutions for them.

11. Evaluate concepts and theories, judging evidence for and against particular ways of understanding an issue.

12. Prepare and make verbal presentations (with visual aids and working in a group, where appropriate).

13. Demonstrate self-management (e.g. working to deadlines, self-learning), independent thinking and critical reflection, individual research and report-writing skills (geography dissertation).

Full-time course composition