Geography

Geography is an unusually wide-ranging discipline, spanning the physical processes that shape the Earth's surface and the human systems of settlement, economy, culture, and power that interact with those processes. It asks how landscapes are formed and transformed, how climate systems work, why some places develop and others decline, how environmental change intersects with human vulnerability, and what the geographies of justice and injustice look like at scales from the neighbourhood to the planet. Few disciplines range so freely between the natural and social sciences, and that breadth is both a challenge and a source of genuine intellectual richness.

At the University of Portsmouth, this three-year, full-time programme includes a sandwich year, a year abroad, and a work placement, giving it an unusually rich set of experiential learning opportunities. The sandwich year and placement give you professional experience in settings where geographical knowledge and skills are applied, while the year abroad opens up the experience of studying geography in a different national and environmental context. Portsmouth's geography programme engages with both physical and human dimensions of the discipline: you will study geomorphology, hydrology, climatology, and environmental management alongside urban geography, development studies, cultural geography, and political geography.

Fieldwork is central to geographical education, and you will have opportunities to gather and analyse data in real environments. A typical entry tariff of 104 UCAS points reflects the programme's accessibility.

Geography develops the ability to think across scales, to work with quantitative and qualitative data, to communicate spatially, and to apply knowledge to real-world problems.

Graduates work in environmental consultancy, urban and regional planning, international development, local government, GIS and spatial data analysis, the charity sector, teaching, and research. The degree is also a strong foundation for postgraduate study in geography, environmental science, planning, or development studies.