Course description
BA Geography at Manchester explores how people, places and environments shape each other. You’ll study some of the biggest challenges facing the world today, including climate change, sustainability, urbanisation, migration, geopolitics, energy, social justice and global inequality.
The course gives you a strong foundation in both human and physical geography before allowing you to focus on the areas that interest you most. In your first year, you’ll study human geographies, environmental processes, global environmental challenges and data science, while developing the academic and practical skills you’ll need for the rest of your degree.
As you progress, you’ll build more advanced skills in fieldwork, research design, GIS, data analysis, digital tools and geographical research. You’ll learn how geographers collect, interpret and communicate evidence, and how these skills can be used to understand real-world social, environmental and political challenges.
You’ll also have the flexibility to shape your studies through optional units. As a BA student, you’ll focus more on human geography and social science approaches to research, while still having opportunities to explore physical geography topics. Options are linked to themes such as social and cultural geographies; cities, economic and political geographies; climate, environment and sustainability; geographical data science; and dynamic environments.
Fieldwork is a key part of Geography at Manchester. You’ll begin with our long-running pre-course field trip to the Lake District, which helps you meet other students, get to know staff and start building field skills before teaching begins. You’ll then continue to learn through local field visits and a second-year residential field course.
In your final year, you’ll study specialist, research-led topics and complete an independent dissertation with support from an academic adviser. By the time you graduate, you’ll have developed subject-specific skills in human geography, research, data-handling, GIS and fieldwork, alongside transferable skills in communication, teamwork, project management and problem-solving.
Special features
Fieldwork from the start
Begin your degree with our long-running pre-course field trip to the Lake District, then continue to build your skills through local field visits and a second-year residential field course. Recent destinations have included the Pyrenees, Morocco, Crete, Barcelona, Copenhagen, Amsterdam and Prague.
Build research, data-handling and GIS skills
Develop practical skills in data science, GIS, data visualisation and digital tools used by geographers to understand landscapes, environments and global challenges.
Teaching and learning
Teaching methods include fieldwork, lectures, seminars, small-group learning, individual tutorials, and team work.
Important notice: factors affecting fieldwork and placements
The School of Environment, Education and Development (SEED) recognises the value of fieldwork and placements. However, the safety and wellbeing of our students and staff remains our priority.
The School will assess on a regular basis the viability of any travel and fieldwork and communicate any significant changes to our students at the earliest possible opportunity.
Course content for year 1
In your first year, you’ll build a broad foundation across human and physical geography. You’ll study human geographies, environmental processes, global environmental challenges and data science, while developing the academic skills needed for university-level study. You’ll also begin working with the kinds of numerical and spatial data used by geographers, including data analysis, visualisation and GIS. This first year is designed to give you a strong grounding in the subject before you begin to shape your studies through optional units in later years.
Course content for year 2
In your second year, you’ll think more deeply about what it means to study geography and begin developing the research skills that will support your final-year dissertation. Core units focus on geographical ideas, research methods and fieldwork, helping you build confidence in collecting, analysing and presenting geographical evidence. You’ll also choose optional units linked to your interests, with topics across culture and society, cities, economies, sustainability, environmental change, GIS and physical geography.
Course content for year 3
In your final year, you’ll study advanced, research-led topics and complete an independent dissertation. This gives you the opportunity to design and carry out your own geographical research project, supported by an academic adviser. As a BA student, your dissertation and research training will focus more on social science approaches to geographical research. You’ll also choose specialist optional units that allow you to explore areas such as migration, health, energy, cities, social change, climate, GIS, environments and society.
What our students say
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Facilities
We're one of Europe's best-equipped universities for Geography, with outstanding computing, laboratory, cartography and library facilities that are used for teaching and research and are available for our students, including:
- World-leading Geography Laboratories with a wide range of advanced capabilities for studying water, soils, sediments and microplastics, including major and trace elemental analysis, spectroscopy, microscopy and X-ray Fluorescence.
- A Geocomputational Suite supporting world-class work in GIS and Remote Sensing, with access to UAVs, and survey tools.
- A Geography Virtual Reality lab for undertaking human and physical geography research and teaching.
- Advanced computing for social sciences coding development.
The University's Main Library is is one of only five National Research Libraries and is a great place to study. It is also home to the University Map Collection, comprising around 100,000 maps of every part of the world.