2024-2025 Binghamton University Academic Guide
Geography Department
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Return to: Harpur College of Arts and Sciences
Geography stresses the importance of understanding where things are located and the processes that create and change the distribution of access to physical and human resources, such as clean water and healthcare. Students learn to better understand how natural and human environments become organized geographically by institutional decisions and the consequences of human actions. Geography students study a number of contemporary problems, among them physical resource development, urban spatial management, racial/ethnic patterns, urban decay, business geography and pollution - just to name a few. Geography stresses strategies for solving not only locational but also environmental problems. Mapping, Global Positioning Systems and Geographic Information Systems are important tools that geographers learn to apply and solve problems.
The department offers a number of curricular options that permit a general education or the choice of a more specialized focus, such as environmental or urban planning analysis, cartography and geographical information systems, or environmental and natural resource management. All options provide preparation for graduate work and/or for careers in public and private agencies. Courses emphasize problem-solving approaches in both a theoretical and applied manner. Double majors are encouraged and special programs may be designed on request.
Geography courses suitable for freshmen include all 100-level courses and all 200-level courses. Recommended for students with a general interest in geography and specific issues of global importance, including development, demographic change, urbanization and migration, and international conflict is GEOG 151; for those interested in physical processes, GEOG 120, GEOG 121, and in racial/ethnic geography, GEOG 103 and GEOG 203.
Geography Honors Program
Honors in Geography
- The student must be an undergraduate geography major with a minimum 3.0 overall GPA and 3.3 GPA in geography.
- The student must submit a report based on a project that is completed during his or her last year.
- This project may be based on any one of the following:
- an original research topic or
- an extension of an internship, or
- an extension of a previous class project
- The project must be completed under the direction of a faculty advisor and must be approved by at least two other faculty members in the Geography Department.
- Designation of honors will depend on creativity, analytical rigor and the overall quality of the final product.
High Honors in Geography
- The student must be an undergraduate geography major with a minimum 3.0 overall GPA and 3.5 GPA in geography.
- The student must write an honors thesis to be completed in the last semester of his or her undergraduate studies.
- The student must register for GEOG 499.
- The thesis must be completed under the direction of a faculty advisor and must be approved by at least two other faculty members in the Geography Department.
- The thesis must represent original research on a geographic theme and/or technique.
- The thesis must be approved by the faculty advisor and an honors thesis committee of two faculty members.
- The thesis must be completed two weeks prior to the end of the semester in which the student plans to graduate.
- Inability to complete work will result in a grade for GEOG 499 but no honors recognition.
- Designation of honors will depend on creativity, analytical rigor and the overall quality of the final product.
- The student will formally present the thesis to the committee.
- The thesis must be bound for the department library.
Highest Honors in Geography
- The student must be an undergraduate geography major with a minimum of 3.0 overall GPA and 3.8 GPA in geography.
- The student must write an honors thesis to be completed in the last semester of his/her undergraduate studies.
- The student must register for GEOG 499.
- The thesis must be completed under the direction of a faculty advisor and must be approved by at least two other faculty members in the Geography Department.
- The thesis must represent original research on a geographic theme and/or technique.
- The thesis must be approved by the faculty advisor and an honors thesis committee of two faculty members.
- The thesis must be completed two weeks prior to the end of the semester in which the student plans to graduate.
- Inability to complete the work will result in a grade for GEOG 499 but no honors recognition.
- Designation of honors will depend on creativity, analytical rigor and the overall quality of the final product.
- The student will formally present the thesis to the committee.
- The thesis must be bound for the department library
Programs
Return to: Harpur College of Arts and Sciences
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