Geography

You typically have six to eight lectures each week (with associated reading). In addition you normally have three supervisions a fortnight at which you discuss a topic, usually following preparatory reading and essay writing.

In the first and second years, you also have laboratory or practical classes, and field classes.

You’re introduced to key themes and issues by studying two core papers:

• Human Geography – topics include globalisation; Fordism and welfare; ecological, economic and political perspectives on resource users
• Physical Geography – topics include tectonics and volcanism, coastal and glacial processes, Quaternary climate change and biogeography, atmosphere and climate

You’re assessed at the end of the year by one written examination for each paper.

You also take the Geographical Skills and Methods paper that covers numerical methods; survey techniques; documentary and archival data; spatial data; and field, laboratory and desk-based skills.

All students take a core Geographical Ideas and Themes paper relating to global change, which is assessed through both coursework and written examination.

In addition, you can begin to specialise and select three papers from a choice of six, which are also assessed by a combination of coursework and examination. Each year, three human geography papers and three physical and environmental geography papers are available. The lists below give examples of Part IB papers that may be offered.

• Austerity and Affluence
• Development Theories, Policies and Practices
• Citizenship, Cities and Civil Society

• Glacial Processes
• Biogeography
• Environmental Systems and Processes: Remote Sensing

Building on Part IA Skills and Methods, you also undertake project work involving a range of field, laboratory and computer skills and techniques.

All students participate in a one-week residential field class during the Easter or summer vacation. This is essential for your final year dissertation research, both in terms of inspiring your choice of topic and in acquiring specific field research skills. A piece of submitted work on the field class forms part of your second-year assessment.

You can either specialise further or maintain a balance across the subject as a whole. You select four papers from 12, which are assessed by either written examination or by a combination of written examination and coursework. Papers on offer vary each year but recent examples include:

• The Geographies of Global Urbanism
• Political Ecology in the Global South
• Geographies of Discipline and Social Regulation
• Biosedimentary Coastal Systems
• Biogeography
• The Glacial and Quaternary Record
• The Political Geography of Postcolonialism
• Historical Demography
• Changing Cultures of Risk
• Volcanology

You also write a dissertation of 10,000 words on a topic of your choice, which you start work on during the summer vacation between your second and third years. The topic must be defined by the second term of Year 2 and the proposal is assessed as part of your second-year coursework.

For further information about studying Geography at the University of Cambridge see the Department of Geography website.