Undergraduate Geography Major & Minor Degrees

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Bachelor of Arts (BA)

SeeÌý for an explanation of Geography curriculumÌýtracks.

Overview

The Department of Geography offers a bachelor of arts (BA) degree in geography. The geography BA emphasizes knowledge and awareness of:

  • the unique contributions of the discipline to understanding the spatial components of problems and the diverse factors relating to human interaction with the environment; Ìý
  • the spatial distributions of physical and human characteristics on the Earth surface, the general patterns these form, and the processes that have created and are changing these patterns;
  • the major themes of geographical analysis, including absolute and relative location; human and physical characteristics of place; human and environmental relations; movement of people, ideas, and products; and regionalization; and
  • the general geographical principles of human-environment interaction, global change, and human spatial organization.
Learning Outcomes
  • Demonstrate knowledge of geographic theories and concepts in the discipline, and a thorough understanding of interactions between human and environmental processes, through a geographical lens.
  • Demonstrate the ability to perform critical inquiry in the discipline, including acquiring, analyzing, and interpreting geographical data to be used in statistical analyses, creating basic maps, and performing geospatial analyses.
  • Demonstrate information literacy in relevant geographic scholarship.
  • Effectively communicate about geographical issues through scholarly writing, presentations, and visualizations.
  • Demonstrate critical thinking skills and logical approaches to problem solving within interdisciplinary settings.
  • Demonstrate the ability to address real-world problems by applying advanced analytical techniques ranging from qualitative, to quantitative, to spatial and field survey methodologies.

Bachelor of Science (BS)

Coming in Fall 2026.


GeographyÌýMinor

Overview

Declaration of a minor is open to any student enrolled at 51³Ô¹ÏÍø, regardless of college or school affiliation.

  • A minimum of 18 credit hours must be taken in the Department of Geography, including a minimum of 9 upper-division credit hours.
  • All coursework applied to the minor must be completed with a grade of C- or better. No pass/fail work may be applied. The GPA of all minor coursework must equal 2.00 (C) or greater.
  • Student pursuing an individually structured major, or who are pursuing a major in distributed studies, will not be eligible to earn a minor.
  • Students will be allowed to apply no more than 9 credit hours (including 6 upper-division) of transfer work toward a minor.
  • Coursework applied toward a minor may also be applied toward Gen Ed as well as the requirements for other majors.


Certificates

The department offers the following undergraduate certificates:

Arctic Studies

GIS and Computational Science

Hydrology

See overview of each certificate here

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