Geography

At Augustana, your fascination with landscapes and human-environment interactions can take you down many career paths: urban planning, community development, environmental management and protection, Geographic Information Systems (GIS), cartography, teaching, foreign service and more.

Augustana offers a major and minor in geography. Students use social and natural science techniques and geospatial technologies to understand human-environment relationships and key global and local issues like climate change, sustainability, urbanization, resource management, and environmental justice.

A new minor in geographic information science and technology (GIS) focuses on skills in geospatial analysis. Students who major in geography can also enroll in a 3+3 Master of Landscape Architecture coordinated degree program with University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

In the interdisciplinary field of geography, you’ll make connections between related fields throughout the liberal arts. And through your professors’ connections to community partners and resources, you’ll find career-boosting opportunities such as internships, work and field experience in the Quad-Cities metro area along the Mississippi River.

You’ll also embark on field trips with class groups or the whole department, investigating site-specific issues and exploring the geography of more distant places. Recent destinations include the Pacific Northwest, Louisiana Gulf Coast, Colorado and Great Plains, Intermountain West, California, Nevada and Southern Illinois.

Distinctions

• Two states, three counties and 14 municipalities comprise the Quad Cities (pop. 450,000) along the Mississippi River — a great area for hands-on geography-related experience. The offices of several national environmental agencies and the Rock Island District Headquarters of the Army Corps of Engineers are located here.
• Augustana's Upper Mississippi Center mobilizes students and faculty to help area communities solve their social, economic and environmental challenges. Communities often lack the resources to develop and implement innovative solutions to sustainability challenges. Students and faculty put their expertise and knowledge to work in these real-world settings.
• Many Augustana geography graduates enter graduate programs in geography, urban planning, geomorphology, landscape architecture and environmental studies.
• The geography and the geology departments are housed in Swenson Hall of Geosciences, a proximity that encourages cross-disciplinary work and interests in the earth sciences. Swenson Hall also houses the Fryxell Geology Museum and the bulk of the David M. Loring Map Library, which holds more than 100,000 climatic, geologic, hydrologic, topographic and transportation maps and 6,000 aerial photographs.

Recent grads

Benjamin Castro '21 is a transportation planner at QC MetroLINK, Quad Cities.

Josh Malone '20 is pursuing a Ph.D. in geological and earth sciences at the University of Texas at Austin and is a graduate research assistant at UT Jackson School of Geosciences.

Hunter Ridley ’20 is completing a two-year honors-affiliated degree in geography at St. John's College at Cambridge University, England.

Mia Gerace '20 is the stormwater coordinator at Lake County (Ill.) Stormwater Management Commission.

Shannon Snyder '18 is a geospatial analyst II at IHS Markit in Denver, Colo.

Madison Vandersee '18 is pursuing a master’s in experiential education and is a graduate assistant at Minnesota State University, Mankato.

Erienne Davis ’17 is a geologist (GIS analyst) at the Iowa Department of Natural Resources in West Des Moines, Iowa.

Barrie Chileen ’17 is a geographer at U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Rock Island District.