Career options @ Geography

Ranjan K Baruah *

Geography Department at Manipur University (MU), Canchipur in 2012 :: Pix - Phurailatpam Banti

We have published career options and opportunities related to different subjects. One of the subjects which we study since our school days is Geography. It is a field of science devoted to the study of the lands, the features, the inhabitants, and the phenomena of Earth.

Four historical traditions in geographical research are spatial analysis of the natural and the human phenomena (geography as the study of distribution), area studies (places and regions), study of the human-land relationship, and research in the Earth sciences.

Modern geography is an all-encompassing discipline that foremost seeks to understand the Earth and all of its human and natural complexities—not merely where objects are, but how they have changed and come to be. Geography has been called “the world discipline” and “the bridge between the human and the physical science”.

Traditionally, geographers have been viewed the same way as cartographers and people who study place names and numbers. Geographers study the space and the temporal database distribution of phenomena, processes, and features as well as the interaction of humans and their environment.

Space and place affect a variety of topics, such as economics, health, climate, plants and animals; geography is highly interdisciplinary. The interdisciplinary nature of the geographical approach depends on attentiveness to the relationship between physical and human phenomena and its spatial patterns.

Geography as a discipline can be split broadly into two main subsidiary fields: human geography and physical geography. The former largely focuses on the built environment and how humans create, view, manage, and influence space. The latter examines the natural environment, and how organisms, climate, soil, water, and landforms produce and interact.

The difference between these approaches led to a third field, environmental geography, which combines the physical and the human geography, and looks at the interactions between the environment and humans.

One may take up the subject after passing class X exam but graduation in Geography is the basic qualification needed to get into the field of geography. There are masters as well as Ph D and other courses available.

Candidates who have passed 10+2 with high marks in social sciences including geography or equivalent can apply for the bachelors course in geography which is offered in both arts and science stream (i.e B.A Geography and B.Sc. Geography).

Courses are available in many colleges and universities in the state and other parts of the country. Some of the courses are BA in Geography, Diploma in Geoinformatics, MA in Geography, M Phil in Geography, M Sc in Applied Geography, M.Sc. in Geoinformatics , M.Sc. in Geography, Master in Geographic Information Science and Systems, Master in Remote Sensing and Geographic Information Science, Ph.D. in Geography, Post Graduate Diploma in Geographical Cartography, Post Graduate Diploma in Remote Sensing and Geographic Information Science, etc .

Many Government and non-government institutes along with research centers offers several career options for qualified geographers with numerous specializations. Some of the specialized areas are —Economic Geography, Cultural Geography, Political Geography, Historical Geography, Tourism Geography , Transportation Geography, Regional Geography, Medical Geography, Geomorphology, Hydrology, Glaciology, Biogeography, Climatology, etc.