Geography, Environment, and Sustainability

The Department of Geography, Environment, and Sustainability offers a program which has three principal objectives: to promote the understanding of the locational dimensions of human behavior in their environmental context; to offer a curriculum in which geographic concepts and methods are applied to understanding economic, environmental and social problems at the urban and regional scale; and to promote international understanding through area studies.

The Bachelor of Science degree in Geography is a comprehensive program of geographic study offering students the opportunity to tightly focus on a particular geographic sub-discipline. B.S. students develop greater depth of knowledge and technical skill in one narrowly focused aspect of geography by completing additional course requirements both within the Department and in closely related disciplines. Thus, B.S. students sacrifice some breadth in order to obtain greater depth of knowledge and technical skills in a specific subdiscipline. This tradeoff is useful in some types of professional employment, and may facilitate a rapid start in graduate-level research, should a student wish to pursue further academic training. Students seeking a high level of specialization should consider the B.S. degree.