Human Geography (with a year in industry) at Swansea University

Course Overview

The BA Human Geography with a Year in Industry degree scheme at Swansea is aimed at students who know their interests lie in human geography. The BA Human Geography course covers a contemporary range of geographical themes, including the processes that shape the global economy, mobility and migration, creative geographies and political geography. The BA Human Geography course gives you the chance to explore how landscapes are shaped and how populations move and interact.

Key features

With a recent investment of £4.2m in state-of-the-art science laboratories, there are many good reasons to study a Geography degree at Swansea University. We are proud to have consistently high student satisfaction scores, (93% in the National Student Survey, 2017) with 94.6% of our graduates in employment or further study after leaving University (HESA data, 2014/15). The Geography Department has also been recognised for it's excellence in Geology (12th in the UK overall, Complete University Guide 2017), Geography and Earth Science (Global Rankings of Academic Subjects, 2017) and for it's research excellence, rated 8th in the UK for Research Impact (REF 2014).

By joining Swansea Geography, you will also have access to the expertise of many internationally-renowned academics:

Professor Tavi Murray: first woman to be awarded Polar Medal by HM Queen for outstanding service to polar research
Professor Adrian Luckman: global media coverage for his climate change research into the collapse of the Larsen C ice shelf
Professor Peter North: international coverage of his work with NASA into the 'greening-up' of the Amazon forest
Professor Siwan Davies: work focuses on establishing why climate has changed dramatically and abruptly in the past 100,000 years through the investigation of volcanic ash deposits trapped in ice sheets

Course description

The BA Human Geography with a Year in Industry degree from Swansea University will provide you with an understanding of the human world, the natural environment, and interactions between them and equip you with the practical, numerical and computational skills that are valued by many employers.

The BA Human Geography with a Year in Industry degree will develop your essential transferable skills, such as team working, communication, presentation, problem solving, and analytical skills and prepare you for a rewarding career in a wide range of areas, including:

environmental management
conservation
aid and development agencies
local authorities, education
financial planning
computing
business and retail management
regional and resource planning and insurance risk assessment
prepare you for postgraduate study in geography or the social sciences

Career prospects

Many students choose Geography because of the scope it provides for studying a wide range of current themes and issues, the important insights it offers for understanding our contemporary world, and the opportunity to put this knowledge into practice through fieldwork. However, what many students do not realise before coming to university is that a Geography degree also offers a broad range of employment opportunities, allowing graduates to pursue a flexible and varied career path.

Every year we survey our recent graduates to ascertain their employment status. The data is more commonly known as the Graduate Destinations Survey and is reported to HESA (the Higher Education Statistics Authority). Here are some examples of job titles from the recent survey: