Geography is key to understanding and resolving many of the most pressing problems faced by society, including climate change, poverty, energy transitions, sustainable development and environmental conservation. Our degree programmes reflect these modern-day challenges, with core and optional courses aimed at producing highly skilled graduates who can think critically and develop solutions to tackle these problems.
We offer a range of Geography degrees which you can read more about below.
View available degree programmesThe University of Aberdeen International Study Centre offers preparation programmes for progression to undergraduate degree study at the university.
Discover the International Study CentreAt Aberdeen, you can choose between studying Geography as either a Bachelor of Science (BSc) or Master of Arts (MA) degree programme. Both can be taken as four-year Honours degrees, or three-year designated degree programmes.
The main difference between the BSc and MA programmes is in the subsidiary subjects taken alongside Geography. For the BSc these will be mainly science subjects, while MA students will take subsidiary courses in the humanities and social sciences. Our BSc and MA programmes in Geography are accredited by the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG).
In the First Year of your Geography degree, you will study two courses that provide an introduction to Geography in all its diversity - Creating the Anthropocene and The UN Sustainable Development Goals. In Second Year and Third Year, you will begin specialising in the areas of Geography that most interest you or align with your career aspirations while in the Fourth Year, you will pursue an individual piece of geographical research in your Dissertation Project and choose courses that reflect the truly cutting-edge research strengths of Geography and Environment in Aberdeen (e.g. Rural Geographies, Glaciology, Environmental change, Hydrology).
We run a modular system, so you have the flexibility to follow a Single Honours Degree with plenty of choice and diversity, or to study Geography as part of a Joint Honours Degree with another subject. To a large extent you can shape your own degree, to suit your particular interests and career plans.
A student studying Single Honours in Geography will complete a four-year programme of study specialising in Geography in 3rd and 4th Year.
A student studying Joint Honours in Geography will complete a four-year degree, specialising in both Geography and another university subject during 3rd and 4th Year. You might, for example, qualify with an MA (Hons) Geography-Sociology degree.
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I absolutely loved my time with all the professors, the lecturers and also the student assistants. They allowed us to really connect with a lot of the people that were on our course through field trips and the actual content of those courses, which is really applicable for real life work.
I gained a large skill set which has served me well, both gaining my current job, acquiring environmental skills, writing skills the dissemination of large bodies of information.
