Where Can Geography Take You?

 by Bianka Anszczak

Geography, a field that is often underestimated, and whose students are mocked for taking an ‘easy’ subject with minimal career opportunities. Perhaps people think that since the world has now been ‘completely’ discovered and transferred to the pages of an atlas, explorers are no longer needed. However, nothing could be further from the truth! As Geography is so much more than that.

At the beginning of September, the PGS Geography department was awarded the Secondary Geography Quality Mark SGQM) by The Geographical Association. This is a huge achievement, which not only highlights the prestige in the quality and progress in geography leadership, curriculum development and learning and teaching in schools but can inspire many future geography students.

So, the question is… where can geography take you?

With a quick Google search you can find that Geography can take you to follow these career paths: Cartographer, Town planner, Surveyor, Conservationist, Meteorologist, Recycling officer, Tourism, Sustainability, Teacher/ Professor/ lecturer, and many others. However, geography graduates are in fact, extremely employable and their degrees are held in high regard by many employers. After graduation, geography grads might go into Business, HR, Finance, Marketing, Engineering, Law, Managerial roles, and IT.

But, even if you do not take geography at university, studying it at GCSE or A-level, can still provide you with many useful skills for example: communication skills, teamwork, problem solving, analytical and critical thinking, time management and research. These skills are transferable to every field and so, can even take you ‘out of this world!’

Geography is the reason we are, where we are today. Therefore, it is so important for our future too, and if that is to become a multiplanetary species, then I think geography would come in quite handy! We also use the ISS and satellites to research many aspects of the Earth. Specialist equipment can check the state of the Earth’s: oceans, atmosphere, poles, and weather. Which are all relevant to issues we face today, such as climate change.

We live in time where studying geography can help us with humanity's future security in an ever-changing environment. Geographers can be argued to be the ‘fortune tellers’ of today’s society. As they can predict future climate change patterns and other natural disasters such as volcanic eruptions and earthquakes. Thanks to this, they can reduce the impact of certain events on Earth and the species living it, by preparing them for it in advance.

Because of geography, millions of lives have been saved.

Michael Palin said: ‘Geography students hold the key to the world's problems.’

Whether that is: Natural disasters, poverty, climate change, deforestation, loss of biodiversity, overpopulation, overconsumption, or even a pandemic…

Perhaps by studying geography, we can all be taken to a better tomorrow.