Careers for Graduate Geographers
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4705994 |
|---|---|
| Authors | W G V Balchin (corresponding author) |
| Year | 1983 |
| Volume | 149 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 334 |
| Publication date | 1983-11-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Geographical Journal (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0016-7398 • E-ISSN: 1475-4959 |
| Publisher | JSTOR (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.2307/634008 |
| OpenAlex | W2314666998 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 4 |
| References cited | 1 |
Committee of the Society reviews the matter from time to time and this memorandum is the result. It outlines the changing trends in career outlets, the attitudes of mind resulting from a training in geography, and then gives details of the current range of careers for which the training and knowledge acquired during a university course in geography are known to be of value. Before the Second World War, most of the then limited number of graduates in geography were absorbed by the teaching profession as schools increasingly included geography in their curriculum. Immediately after the War local and national planning departments were created as a result of the Town and Country Planning Act of 1947, and the greater numbers of geography graduates ofthe 1950s and the early 1960s were largely shared by the teaching and planning professions. The late 1960s and the 1970s, however, witnessed an increased interest in the environment and also heralded a new phase in which geography graduates penetrated into a wide range of professional posts in local and central government, industry, commerce, banking and accountancy: this coincided with a relative decline in the traditional outlets of teaching and planning as these professions became fully staffed. Currently, ofthe 2500 graduates in geography each year, little more that 20 per cent are likely to enter the educational world and only about 2 per cent that of planning. The remainder will disperse into a wide spectrum of posts in administration, business, commerce, industry and the environmental field. This great expansion in career outlets for geography graduates should give encouragement to the graduates ofthe 1980s confronted with the spectre of delayed employment. It is sometimes stated that the possession of a geography degree is irrelevant to many of the posts to which geographers have been appointed. Such critics overlook the fact that a geographical training and the adaptability acquired appeals to many employers who have become aware ofthe fact that graduates in geography, unlike those in many other disciplines, have had a training in each of the four basic communication skills: literacy, numeracy, articulacy and graphicacy. Essays, seminar work and projects build up an expertise in Literacy; laboratory work, statistical exercises and computer training underwrite an expertise in Numeracy; tutorials and field interviews with project presentation strengthen the skill of Articulacy; whilst unique to geography is the whole range of visual-spatial data presentation and analysis represented by maps, graphs, charts, diagrams and computer graphics collectively expressed by the term Graphicacy. All these skills can be employed over a very diverse field ranging from environmental, market and operational research to hospital administration, housing management, mapping, survey, landscape architecture and the tourist industry, to name but a few possibilities
Economic geography · Engineering ethics · Geography · Regional science · Sociology · Engineering · Geography Education and Pedagogy
| Unique citing works | 4 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0.11 |
| Citation span | 1990 - 1997 (8) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 4 |