Geography Minor

Department Requirements for a Minor in Geography - 18 Semester Hours

Mission

As we now live in a multi-cultural and globalized world, the study of Geography is vital to help us better understand and appreciate the diversity and the increasing level of interconnection between people, places, and the environment throughout the world. Understanding the variety and complexity of the world’s cultural, economic, political, and environmental systems is the foundation of a minor in Geography at TSU. The program promotes students’ intellectual growth and professional development by exposing them to geographic knowledge and skills in geospatial technologies needed by employers today to work and provide leadership in a multicultural world.

Program Goals

The minor in Geography is designed to familiarize students with the spatial arrangement of both human and physical phenomena at the local, regional, and global levels while also training them in the skills of Geography as an intellectual discipline. While students are welcome to focus their studies on physical or human systems, the minor requirements reflect the goal of providing students with a broader exposure to the discipline in the areas of physical, human, and technical geography.

Student Learning Outcomes:

1. Recognize the characteristic features of Geography as an academic discipline that bridges social and natural sciences.
2. Conduct thorough research applying core geographic concepts, models, and appropriate research methods.
3. Advance original arguments in well-written essays with appropriate citation of sources.
4. Analyze the spatial arrangement of physical and human phenomena on the earth’s surface and explain the underlying processes that shape the distribution of these phenomena
5. Explain in the reciprocal relationship between human geographic patterns and the natural environment.
6. Develop skills in geospatial technologies and apply these technologies to analyze and display geographic data.
7. Identify places and regions distinguished by distinctive combinations of cultural and physical features and explain the linkages among them.
8. Think critically about issues of globalization and local diversity and environmental sustainability.

The Department provides an opportunity for students to enrich their education by obtaining a minor in Geography, composed of 18 semester hours of courses, including two semesters of World Regional Geography (GEOG 1010  and GEOG 1020 ) and a minimum of one course from each of the three components of the program: physical geography, systematic geography, and regional geography.