We pride ourselves on our up-to-date and relevant undergraduate and postgraduate teaching, with courses and degree programmes that seek to provide you with the knowledge and skills to engage with many of the defining social and environmental issues of our time - from the global challenges of climate change and the credit crunch, to more local concerns such as vulnerability to flooding and the problems of social exclusion within British cities.
The department benefits from excellent teaching facilities within the Best Building, and staff that are nationally and internationally recognised experts in their respective fields. Many of our courses also engage practitioners and outside agencies, ensuring that students graduate with a strong sense of the application of their knowledge and skills in the workplace.
Don't just take our word for it! - in the National Student Surveys of both 2007 and 2008 GDS at Chester was the only department of geography in the country to score 100% for student satisfaction. This provides an independent measure of the quality of all the department's undergraduate programmes and of the good working relationships between students and tutors.
We are also proud of the fact that all the images on our website have been taken by staff and students of the department, to provide a very real sense of the types of fieldwork we do, and of the distinctive learning opportunities available to you here in Chester.
Academic Programme
We currently offer one Single Honours undergraduate degree programme in Geography and Combined Honours degree programmes in Geography, International Development Studies (IDS) and Natural Hazard Management (NHM). An increasing number of our students choose to combine one GDS programme with another; e.g. IDS and Geography. All of our programmes are characterised by:
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Opportunities to specialise in social (human) and environmental (physical) aspects of your degree subject
- Investigation at a range of scales, from global to local
- Distinctive fieldwork activities in the UK, with various opportunities for overseas fieldwork (some obligatory and paid for by the University) in Years 2 and 3
- Opportunities to complete a 4-6 week work/experiential learning placement (in this country or abroad) in your chosen area of specialism as part of your degree
- Use of a broad range of assessment modes, including: poster presentation, digital story telling, group and individual oral presentations, consultancy reports, lab' portfolios, briefing papers, video presentation, work-based assessments
- Focused personal development and careers guidance within core modules
- Active engagement with practitioners, especially in Year 3.
In addition to its undergraduate provision, GDS at Chester offers postgraduate courses in Housing and Regeneration for Practitioners, CPD training for teachers, and research and consultancy expertise in a range of areas, including: carbon management, natural hazard assessment and mitigation, social exclusion, pedagogy, sustainable communities, Geographical Information Systems, China, poverty and health, asylum and refuge.
Best Building - teaching spaces
GDS occupies the ground floor of the Best Building, located on the Chester campus and is within five minutes' walk of key facilities including: the Library and Media Resource Centre, catering outlets, the Students' Union and SU Bar, the fitness centre and swimming pool. The Best Building provides a self-contained base with a large lecture theatre, five seminar and tutorial rooms of various sizes, a map and open access resource room, GIS laboratory and soils laboratory. All these teaching spaces benefited from a complete refurbishment in summer 2007 to provide facilities of the highest quality.
Best Building - laboratory facilities
Departmental computing facilities include PC and Macintosh hardware, with capabilities for scanning, digitising and printing up to poster (A1) size, and an impressive range of industry-standard software; e.g. for satellite image processing and Geographical Information Systems (GIS). We have a significant map and aerial photograph collection, including digital map coverage for the entire UK, and a wide range of laboratory and field equipment to support project work; e.g. for interviewing, focus groups, audio and visual recording, peat coring, environmental magnetism, lichenometry, surveying and photogrammetry, sediment logging, dendrochronology, hydrology, microclimate, soils and vegetation description and analysis, and rock/stone weathering.
