hi i have a pretty broad question to ask, it would be cool if you can answer the best you can. what kind of jobs/careers can you get with a geography degree with bs or masters. what is the salary of that job? im really interested in geography, especially physical geography, but i just dunno if its worth spending money and getting into..
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Re: jobs and careers?
Sat, September 25, 2004 - 5:24 AMI want to know the same kind of answers except that I want to know specificaly about political and natural resource geography. -
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Re: jobs and careers?
Thu, September 30, 2004 - 10:37 PMumm anyone? ok let me ask you this then, is geography a good basis to going into urban planning? iv read through my school catalog and in the geography field there is some urban planning and urban geography classes. Im interested in geography/urban land use planning. which i think it is better to know geo. cause its less policy and stuff and more about the land? please enlighten me... -
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Re: jobs and careers?
Wed, October 20, 2004 - 8:46 AMYes, I would say geography is an excellent basis for urban planning. Be sure to take coursework in Geographic Information Systems (GIS). This will be especially helpful if you are intrested in land-use. However, if you do a job search for "geographer" you are not likely to find many jobs. Most geographers usually end up with some other job title ranging from database manager to environmental specialist. If you want to get a good view of the wide variety of jobs that geographers do visit the Association of American Geographers website at
www.aag.org/Careers/Intro.html
Even better go to your schools library and pick up a copy of the "Annals of the Association of American Geographers" and you will notice how different the topics are. Good Luck!
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Re: jobs and careers?
Wed, October 20, 2004 - 8:49 AMYou eventual income of course will depend on the geographic area you are in, level of education and experience. If you combine your geography skills with some other expertise like project management you are certain to bring home a higher paycheck.
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Re: jobs and careers?
Tue, December 28, 2004 - 8:43 AMA BA/BS in Geography would be a very good degree for a career in urban planning. As Waypoints states, make sure you take classes in GIS. I am the GIS Coordinator for a local government in the Los Angeles area and work with people in our planning department. They only have two planners there with GIS skills and most of those are self taught. Having a background in GIS will certainly help you get a job. Many Geography departments have specilizations in urban/regional planning. Locally I know UCLA, CSU Long Beach, and Cal Poly Pomona have programs.
In addition to the AAG career site, which tends to be heavy on research and teaching positions, I would look at GIS Job Clearinghouse (www.gjc.org). There are generally 3-10 GIS related job posts a day on the site.
Speaking specifically to jobs in the GIS world, I would say the pay breaks down something like this for jobs in the LA area (keep in mind the cost of living is VERY expensive here so salarys are a bit inflated): Intern - Tech I $10-15/hr., Tech II - Analyst I $35K-$40K Anlyst II - Sr. Analyt & GIS Programmer $40K-$60 GIS Coord $50K-$90K.
Good luck! -
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Re: jobs and careers?
Fri, December 31, 2004 - 8:00 AMI got my MA in Geography with a focus on regional planning and GIS in '01 and had secured a position with a leading GIS software company several weeks before I graduated. I went to a public university and I paired my MA studies with a full time internship in my city's planning department while in school.
Since working with my company I have had the pleasure of seeing GIS and planning in action across most of the disciplines that the technology touches...both public and private sector...and I can tell you that there are exciting careers in both areas. If your goals are to maximize your salary and marketability post grad, you should try to incorporate as much web and server-side GIS coursework as possible into your curricula. Also, as wireless technology becomes exponentially more powerful there is a greater demand for knowledge of the GIS software that is portable...some experience with this type of software would definitely give a prospective candidate an edge.
Some other gis websites:
www.geographynetwork.com
www.gisday.com
www.gisci.org
Cheers! -
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Re: jobs and careers?
Fri, January 14, 2005 - 5:15 PMI got a MA in biogeography. I work as an Ecologist for a private environmental consulting firm. My pay is Ecologist II with a masters degree and I make bewtween 35 and 40 K starting out.
Best of Luck!
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Re: jobs and careers?
Sun, January 23, 2005 - 12:30 PMI work as a GIS Application Developer and my BA is in Geography. If you're interested in IT type things, I would recommend something along the software engineering path. It's a specialty that isn't very common (geographers with a programming background)- especially in federal government. As a result of this specialty, my payscale went way up (>50% pay increase in 4 years). If you want to work for the government (great stability, benefits and possible travel) I would recommend getting an advanced degree. Gov't agencies have a standard pay scale and you start much higher with a Masters. Univ of Colorado @ Denver has a Masters in Civil Engineers in GIS that is a good program.
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Re: jobs and careers?
Sat, July 9, 2005 - 10:13 AM -
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Re: jobs and careers?
Sat, July 9, 2005 - 10:14 AMwhoops might help if i read someone already posted this ! DOH ! -
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Re: jobs and careers?
Mon, July 11, 2005 - 11:25 AMCheck it ou they have a rss feed on jobs! Also, has anyone had luck using third-parties like www.gisbid.com/
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