You can design your Geography degree around human or physical geography or focus on both elements, depending on your interests. Each year you will explore a diversity of critical issues challenging 21st century societies, environments and cultures, from local to global scales. You will also build your knowledge and skills through structured pathways of study which elevates the student learning experience and graduate employability to a significantly higher level through the opportunity for extended work placements, opportunities to work on real projects and Project Management.

Year One: MGeog Geography degree

• Landform Systems: The module aims to introduce you to the principles of pedology and geomorphology, including surface processes and the resultant landforms and features.
  
  
• Introductory Field and Research Skills: The module will introduce you to a wide variety of field techniques, description and interpretation methods which will allow you to investigate, gather, process, display and present geographical/earth science data and materials.
  
  
• Landscapes in Transition: The module traces the development of the contemporary city from its origins in the industrial revolution of the mid-eighteenth century through to the emerging post-industrial urban society including an examination of urban design and planning, representations of national space, utopian visions and imagined landscapes.
  
  
• A Sustainable Wales: You will be introduced to the debates over the meaning of the 'nation' before examining competing ideas of the Welsh nation, the process of devolution and the manner in which the Welsh nation is currently being articulated. You will then explore the relationships between sustainability and the Welsh nation and examines the implications for Wales as a region at the periphery of the European Union.
  
  
• Introduction to Data Analysis and GIS: You will examine a range of methods which will allow you to process, analyse, manipulate, display and present geographical/earth science data. It will also be introduced to the wide spread usages and applications of G.I.S. with a variety of geospatial data.
  
  
• The Dynamic Earth: The module will introduce you a wide breadth of Earth Science at an introductory level. This will provide a broad introduction to the Earth, including its physical structure, surface, form and the large scale systems that shape and affect it.

Year Two: MGeog Geography degree

• Reconstructing Change: You will examine the principles and methodologies of palaeoecological and palaeoenvironmental reconstruction techniques, and review some of their applications and limitations in terrestrial and marine environments.
  
  
• Participatory Geography: This module will introduce you to participatory geography through working in collaboration with community groups on development projects.
  
  
• Fluvial and Glacial Environments: The module will develop a critical understanding of the geomorphological processes and landscapes that result from the movement of water across the landscape.
  
  
• Landscapes of Consumption: This module begins with an overview of consumption and the central role it has acquired within the Social Sciences, as both theory and method, in the past decades. The ideas of the consumption society, the consumption paradox and the symbolic economy of consumption will also be examined.
  
  
• Understanding Sustainable Development: The module will consider how processes of change operate and are conceptualised in the broader framework within which local sustainability is set. The role and participation of local government, and the individual citizen in community development is also considered.
  
  
• Techniques in Geography: The module will focus on key geographical challenges facing the world at the beginning of the twenty-first century. Residential fieldwork will be undertaken which will utilise a range of techniques including terrain analysis, mapping, survey work, geophysical investigation and more.

Year Three: MGeog Geography degree

• Management of Environmental Hazards: The module will allow you to predict and assess the risks posed by the wide range of environmental hazard types that can affect human life and society and explain the issues and problems involved in the mitigation of hazards and evaluate the strategies used to manage them.
  
  
• Climate Change: You will critically examine the causes, consequences and records of climatic change on a variety of spatial and temporal scales from natural and anthropogenic causes.
  
  
• Regional Geography Field Course (optional): The module will develop and safely practice a range of advanced practical and analytical field techniques and provide you with an opportunity to draw on a range of skills and geographical knowledge developed over previous years of study.
  
  
• Urban Geography: You will explore different aspects of the social and cultural geography of the contemporary city, with particular focus on the way in which the city sponsors and supports social and spatial difference.
  
  
• Rural Geography: We will critically evaluate the changing role of the British countryside in the twenty first century by exploring the different ways in which rural society has been defined and socially represented. Focus will centre on perceptions associated with the rural idyll and notions of community
  and the way in which the countryside is becoming increasingly commodified.
  
  
• Reading the Contemporary Landscape (optional): The relationship between society, land and landscape is deeply complex. The module begins by examining how we see, envision, imagine and represent the world. It continues by exploring the many ways in which it has shaped the cultures and landscapes we inhabit, as well as our future hopes and fears. Central to this will be an emphasis on everyday as well as special landscapes, urban greenspace and green infrastructure, in addition to rural landscapes.
  
  
• Earth Observation (optional): You will explore the use of remote sensing, satellite and UAV imagery in environmental management and develop intermediate practical skills in data fusion of RS and GIS datasets and understand how the products are applied to a wide range of environmental issues.
  
  

Year Four: MGeog Geography degree

• Work-based Learning and Project Management: You will be required to undertake a period of 60 hours of work based learning under the direction of an employer and an academic supervisor. The module will also introduce you to a best practice project management framework using PRINCE2 methodology.

• Tools for Sustainable Development: The module will provide an overview of the principles, techniques and methodologies of sustainable development. This is intended to develop your ability to critically evaluate strategies, plans and programmes for sustainable development.

   

• Active Citizenship: Active learning for active citizenship is central to the development of engaged and critical citizens at a local, national and international level. The module therefore seeks to build personal effectiveness, social enterprise and lifelong learning through volunteering.

   

• Masters Research Project: The aim of this research study is that each student will prepare for a detailed research project, prepare a paper as if for submission for publication in a refereed academic journal and present their research to their peers.

• Remote Sensing for Environmental Management: The module will provide a review and practical introduction to the use of Remote Sensing and G.I.S. techniques and applications in environmental resource management. The module will also provide appropriate practical and analytical skills in data collection and manipulation of key environmental data.

The MGeog Geography degree will give you the edge over other geography graduates, enhancing your knowledge, skills and experience. As an experiential course it offers a truly transformative programme of study, particularly as geographers are ideally equipped to understand the world about them, their interaction with it and consider its future sustainability. This insight ensures that as a geography graduate you are highly employable in a wide range of professions.

Many graduates of this Geography course have developed careers in local authorities, environmental consultancies, the Environment Agency/Natural Resources Wales, the construction industry, the service sector, or the Civil Service. Other career opportunities for our graduates include contaminated land reclamation, waste disposal and recycling. You can find career opportunities in environment agencies and consultancies, town and country planning, public administration, retail management, utility companies, teaching or further study. The choice is yours