Every frustrating thing all long-suffering Geography students will understand
I feel personally attacked
Us geographers get a hard rap – we are constantly told that our course is only about colouring-in, which is just rude (and incorrect). When we are asked what job we can really do with our degree, that hurts you know? You don’t see us questioning your Philosophy course Laura, what’s the point of that eh?
Geography is without a doubt just-as-if-not-more legit than any other degree, so here’s a list of all the hardships you’ll have encountered as a long-suffering Geography student:
Geography students are actually the most useful people to have on a pub quiz team
It’s almost guaranteed that we’ll know at least 50 per cent more capital cities in the world than James who studies Business. Actually, our general world-knowledge isn’t too shabby either – we know the population rates, average temperature, currencies and possibly even the exchange rate of a lot of countries as well.
Yet it is the mysterious colouring-in myth that seems to follow us around everywhere
Not sure why you think I’m managing to study the legacy of apartheid in South Africa using just crayons, but go off I guess. Crayola would be a lot more generous with their student discount if that were the case.
The rivalry between human and physical is real
What’s even more offensive than the colouring-in comments is that human and physical geographers are constantly lumped in together, as if we’re the same, as if we’re (shudders) equal. One is a science, one is a humanity. VERY different. As if human geographers could understand the scientific significance of there being 70,000 different types of soil in the USA alone. And as if physical geographers care about how world events affect our food prices.
What other course has to deal with this exhausting rivalry? You don’t catch English Lit students at constant battle with English Language students now, do you? The BA-BSC divide is real.
Global warming is obviously a thing and we’re the people who know how to stop it
Enough is enough – this entire summer of abnormal heat in the UK is more than sufficient proof in the pudding, we’re quite clearly heating up the Earth. If that isn’t enough evidence for you, why not have a chat with a Geography student? We’ll be happy to give you a lesson on why plastic, aeroplanes and fossil fuels are the worst things ever, complete with diagrams.
Plus, you know your degree is valuable when Prince William has one
That’s right, the future king got a 2:1 from St Andrews, and so that immediately makes us royalty on university campuses.
We get to go on incredible trips around the world as part of our degree
We are lucky to go to places like California, Iceland, Crete, New Zealand, Brazil and more for field trips, as part of our course. What other degree offers this kind of scope to go exploring some geographical wonders of the world? Not Maths.
And the modules we study reflect every single aspect of our lives
No matter whether we’re talking about housing, populations, climate change, lifestyles, money, politics – you name it, Geography is relevant to every single element of our society.
We can discuss any of these important topics in great depth, which makes us extremely good dinner party guests. Sit us next to anyone and they’ll think we’re the best conversationalist ever – except when we start banging on about compulsory qualitative methods and can’t stop.
We don’t carry around rocks instead of books
And we slyly have the best-dressed boys
We’ve all got that one pal who makes the same joke all the time – because we focus on rocks so much we must be completely and utterly obsessed with them! LOL!!!!! To be honest, the only thing remotely rock-like that we deal with is our books, because somehow they’re heavier than a backpack full of Andesite.
And actually, we are super employable, thanks for never asking
This stereotype of us only being fit for the Geography classroom or McDonald’s serving window needs to go. We can tackle any sort of job we put our minds to, whether it requires practical skills, numeracy, problem-solving, resilience or leadership. We’ve got all of that and more from leading a bedraggled group of course mates through a rainy field trip, organising ourselves enough to teach ourselves half the course, and of course, taking all the awful chat given to us by our stupid, non-Geography mates.