Geography with a Year in Industry

From exploring landscapes and how they are shaped, to interpreting satellite Earth observation and GIS data, to monitoring environmental changes from Space, the study of geography is more relevant than ever.

If you’re particularly focused on enhancing your employability and have a keen interest in physical geography and science, our BSc with a year in industry is an excellent choice that will equip you with highly desirable practical, numerical and computational skills for a wide range of careers. These include regional planning, environmental management, local authority work, financial planning, computing or business and retail management.

We are ideally placed to offer exceptional fieldwork opportunities. Just a short drive from the UK’s first designated Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, the Gower Peninsula, you will have easy access to Bannau Brycheiniog, rural west Wales and the urban and industrial landscapes of South Wales. You’ll also have an opportunity to carry out fieldwork overseas in Austria, Berlin, Malaysian Borneo, Mallorca, New York or Vancouver.

Through this degree, you will explore topical issues such as glacial environments and processes, climate change, meteorology and plate tectonics. You’ll also get the chance to develop some valuable transferable work skills in your penultimate year of study through an industrial placement.

You’ll have access to our high-performance computer lab for processing and interpreting satellite earth observation and GIS data, a stable isotope ratio mass spectrometer, a climatic test chamber, mineral magnetic characterisation equipment and an automatic organic carbon analyser.

You will learn from internationally renowned academics including Professor Tavi Murray, the first woman to be awarded Polar Medal by HM Queen, Professor Adrian Luckman, who has achieved global media coverage for his climate change research, Professor Peter North, who received international coverage of his work with NASA, and Professor Siwan Davies, whose work focuses on the dramatic changes to our climate.

You can change between our BA and BSc schemes up until the end of Year 2. This degree is also offered as a four-year course with a year abroad (F8R9).

“The fieldwork opportunities at Swansea University have been as various as they have been plentiful and have given me a wealth of scientific experience…The best thing about studying Geography is how the subject is so broad the skill sets you learn and develop over the three years can be applied across many different business sectors!”

• Tomas Howells, BSc Geography

We guarantee that you will be made a conditional offer for a course at Swansea University. Subject requirements will apply. Please come along to our next Open Day or get in touch for further information. Book an Open Day here: https://www.swansea.ac.uk/our-open-days/

In Year 1 you’ll study several compulsory modules covering topics such as global environmental change, people place and nation, global shifts and sustainability. You will then choose from optional modules covering geographical skills and methods, writing skills and personal development planning, and topics such as mobilities and migration, urban geography and geology.

In Year 2, you’ll choose from a range of optional modules covering data analysis, approaches to human and physical geography, and conducting social and environmental research. You’ll study topics such as geographic information systems, glacial environments and processes, creative geographies, quaternary environmental change, regional economic development and policy, boundaries and connections, global vegetation patterns and dynamics, political geographies, urban modelling and geological record of past environments. You’ll also have an opportunity to take part in an overseas field trip.

In Year 3, you’ll spend a minimum of 40 weeks in an industrial placement in a UK company. Occasionally, opportunities may arise outside of the UK. You’ll receive support from our placements team during your 2nd year to help you prepare for and secure a relevant industrial placement.

In Year 4, you’ll undertake your dissertation and choose from a range of optional modules covering topics such as migration, security and humanism, contemporary rural Britain, geographies of national identity, glaciology, humid tropical environments and landscapes, meteorology and atmospheric science, plate tectonics and global geophysics, World cities, environmental modelling and the climate of the last 1,000 years. You’ll also have the opportunity to undertake an interdisciplinary field trip to the Indian Himalayas (Sikkim).

The Year in Industry must be taken with a relevant employer or organisation and can be taken either locally, nationally or overseas. The advantages of taking the Year in Industry are extensive, giving you the opportunity to apply your skills in a work based environment which in turn will greatly enhancing your CV and employment prospects. The department will provide ongoing support and guidance prior to your placement in year 2 through the pre-placement programme, and whilst you are on placement through regular contact points with staff. The department is working with a number of organisations who are providing a range of placement opportunities. However securing a placement is the responsibility of the student. If you are unable to secure a placement by the end of the second year of your studies you will transfer onto the equivalent 3 year degree programme.