Gauri Chhabra
For all of you, who are at the threshold of making a career choice and thinking of joining the bandwagon of careers of the decade, think of a discipline that occupies enormous surface area, a subject that would open several career doors for you. If you are interested in a discipline that deals with what’s where, why it’s there, and why it matters, make Geography your choice.Geography is both near and far. It’s in your backyard and across the globe.In this flat world where you are global citizen- geography is a part of your daily life.
Of late it has changed its shape and scope from being a science of earth, to a study of maps, to an encyclopedia of climatic conditions, to information systems like Global Positioning System (GPS) and Geographic Information System (GIS) enveloping many other disciplines in its folds.
Educational threshold
Geography forms an integral part of school curriculum that moves in a linear manner from primary to secondary curriculum. At the college level, it lies at the intersection between Humanities and Science depending on whether you choose – a BA or a B.Sc degree.While going for the former,you can couple it with Economics, Political Science and Sociology to prepare the ground for specialization in Human Geography while the latter gravitates towards Physical Geography and quantitative techniques.
For Honors degrees in BA and BSc, Economics, History and Mathematics can be offered.You will be required to study Principles of Geomorphology, Climatology, Oceanology, Human Geography, Cartography, quantitative and surveying techniques, Remote Sensing and GIS.
You can move up the academic ladder by going in for a Master’s program (MA/ MSc Geography and opting for a specialization. You may make your choice of the institution depending upon the specialization you wish to opt for.The common denominator is the emphasis on urban planning, environmental management, disaster management, GIS, remote sensing, and the like.
Today, geography opens many avenues for careers. You may go in for any specialization and you will find jobs that cut across sectors and departments from Government to corporate houses, from town planning to Environment consultants,says Sunil Dhingra, Head Placements, Kurukshetra University, Kurukshetra.
Institute scape
Below is a list of institutions and the specializations they are known for:
* JamiaMillia, Agricultural and Cultural geograph
* JNU, Regional Development,
* Delhi university,Urban & Regional Studies, Environment & Resources also offering Certificate in Disaster Management and P.G.Diploma in Disaster Management
* Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU), Disaster Management.
* Punjab University,Chandigarh, M.A Disaster Management.
* National Institute of Disaster Management (NIDM), New
Delhi,
* Disaster Mitigation Institute, Ahmedabad
* BHU, Population and Urban studies
* Indian Institute of Remote Sensing (IIRS)-Dehradun
* Symbiosis Institute of Geoinformatics, Pune
* Madras university,GIS and remote sensing courses
* MSU-Baroda
* Kurukshetra University, Haryana
* Allahabad university
Career Pathways
Geography offers a wide range of career pathways that cut across sectors like transportation, environmental sciences, airline route and shipping route planning, civil services, cartography satellite technology, meteorology departments, education, and disaster management. Besides, you can avail job opportunities in government departments like planning and developmental commissions, forestry, environmental, travel agencies, manufacturing firms, text book and map publishers, and media agencies.
Here are some career options:
Cartographer
If maps, charts and globes interest you, you may choose to work as a cartographer who is involved with the scientific, technological and artistic aspects of developing and producing maps.Your role may vary from the technical role of the development, maintenance and manipulation of cartographic databases to the promotion of effective and efficient visualization of geospatial information, to the design of bespoke maps, to analyzing and evaluating mappable informationin avariety of areas, including publishing, government, surveying and conservation.
The mode of presentation is mostly diagrams, charts and spreadsheets, as well as form of conventional maps. Geographical information systems (GIS) and digital-mapping techniques now dominate the role.
Surveyor
A surveyor is the person who is involved in measuring the surface of land, distance between two places through mathematical calculations. As a surveyor, your job would involve lots of field work and is majorly recruited by state and central survey departments, construction companies and so on.
Retail Consultancy
With Organized Retail becoming the latest mantra today, you can help retailers expand, resize their stores, relocate their stores and planning their centers and maximize their rental returns.
Climatologist
Remember, the persons who read the weather forecast after every news hour on television that you have been watching from decades. These are climatologists. Your knowledge of meteorology would help you get a job with National Weather Service, news media, and the like.Being an explorer is being a geographer. To understand the climate, you need to understand how the earth looks like. It allows us to understand our planet and connect with it in ways we were not able to do so earlier.
Disaster Management specialist
Disasters are unstoppable natural and anthropogenic impacts which can be mitigated by suitable management options. As a specialist in the field, you may be required to deal with the situation before, during and after the disasters. The Ministry of Home Affairs is the nodal agency which monitors and manages the disasters. Other departments like agriculture, chemical, civil aviation, railways, road transport, environment and forest, health and atomic energy are responsible for their respective areas.You will be responsible for quick rehabilitation of the disaster affected people, understand their psychological conditions and help in their post disaster settlement.
Town Planner
As a town planner, you would help to shape the way towns and cities develop. This involves balancing the competing demands placed on land by housing, business, transport and leisure, and making sure plans meet the economic and social needs of the community.
Your work would cover different aspects of planning and development including planning for housing to create affordable, energy efficient homes, managing transport growth and encouraging public transport schemes, redesigning street layouts to improve public safety, and reduce traffic and crime, developing parks, woodland and waterways in a sustainable way, conserving old buildings, archaeological sites and areas of interest, enforcing planning controls, for instance on building work that has started without permission, hearing concerns about planning proposals from local people and businesses.You would also assess the potential impact that developments, such as new road building, might have on an area. To do this, you would use surveying techniques, geographical information systems (GIS) and computer-aided design (CAD) to draw up plans and make recommendations to local and regional councils.
Geo morphologist
Geomorphology is the study of how the land formations on the Earth’s surface change, as well as what causes the change. As a Geomorphologist, you would be required to study the events of the past to determine what shaped a particular portion of the Earth into its current features, predict future events, such as hazardous volcanic eruptions or massive earthquakes by researching in the lab or in the field. Research can be performed in all landscape types and on all scales, from the whole planet to small portions of it, like volcanic islands.
You can team it up with your management skills and become a project leader which requires budgetary development, staff oversight, proposal writing and project planning. This may also require supervisory management of other researchers, such as checking work and evaluating gathered information.
Therefore, pick Geography as a discipline and go places… anywhere and everywhere…
Geography is the future…
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