University of St. Thomas

Welcome to the geography facts page, where you’ll be taken beyond the course offerings and program description and deeper into the geography major. You’ll learn what St. Thomas students are doing now to enhance their educations and how recent graduates are succeeding in the real world. More importantly, we hope you’ll be able to use this information to decide if this major interests you. When asked what one phrase best describes the geography major at St. Thomas, a faculty member replied, “practical.”

A real student asks:

 

Do geography majors go to school to learn how to give good directions?

A geography faculty member responds: No, see Mapquest.com for that. Geography is the science of place and space. Geographers ask where things are located on the surface of the earth, why they are located where they are, how places differ from one another, and how people interact with the environment. Geographers also study the linkages between human activity and natural systems, and how these are changing.

What jobs are possible with a Geography major?

What are recent graduates doing now?

Drew Moore ’06 is currently enrolled in the M.S. GIS program at MSU/Mankato. He recently won the graduate student competition and $1,000 at the 2007 Minnesota GIS/LIS annual conference held in Rochester, Minn. His presentation was based on work he started at St. Thomas as a geography undergraduate. Drew chose geography as his major because he has been interested in maps and map-making from an early age.

What opportunities are there to bolster my resume while I'm in the program?

Internships. Any student in geography who wants an internship or research experience gets one. We have some long-term contacts that provide internships for our students almost every semester (i.e. Target Corp., Best Buy, The Nature Conservancy) who periodically contact us with work to be done. Currently, our job board has paid internship announcements for the Metropolitan Council, the Three Rivers Park District, the City of Shakopee and the United States Army Corps of Engineers.

Study abroad. Current majors are studying in England and Ireland, while others are preparing to go to New Zealand and India during J-Term 2008. Because geography as a subject is so universal, virtually every college or university around the world has extensive offerings in this discipline. It is usually the case that St. Thomas students can satisfy some of their major or core university requirements while abroad. Geography is more than just maps; it is concerned with the spatial aspects of human existence - how people and their activity are distributed in space, how they use and perceive space and how they create and sustain the places that make up the earth's surface. Study abroad opportunities serve to deepen this understanding.

Faculty at work

All of our faculty are fully engaged in their discipline and student participation is the norm. Dr. Robert Werner has been the Director of UST’s Bush Foundation Program grant since 2002. He is currently teaching an Africa course and plans to take students to South Africa over J-Term 2008. Dr. Paul Lorah continues to serve on the Board of the Minnesota Nature Conservancy. This semester he is teaching a conservation geography course and is conducting research with students on site location analysis for solar power facilities, modeling fragmentation in Minnesota’s forests, estimating the economic value of Minnesota ecosystem services and studying potential sites for prairie preserves. Dr. David Kelley has just been elected to the Minnesota GIS/LIS Consortium Board of Directors as the Higher Education Representative for 2008. He conducts research on landscape changes that result in impacts on watersheds in the upper Midwest and has incorporated stream monitoring of the Minnehaha Creek into his Landscapes: Physical Systems course. Ms. Catherine Hansen teaches two courses as an adjunct in our GIS concentration, but spends the bulk of her time working internally with students on research projects for UST programs and externally for Twin Cities clients.