The Geography Department at Swansea University is large and diverse. We offer a wide range of degrees across human and physical geography, alongside Environmental Geoscience. You can choose a mixture of modules from the different disciplines or be more specialist – it’s up to you. A flexibly structured degree path means you have the opportunity to study abroad for a year or work in industry for a year, either locally, nationally or overseas.
You will be taught through a combination of lectures, tutorials, seminars, and discussion groups, supported by practical classes and field courses. Field courses might take you from areas of outstanding natural beauty on our doorstep in the Gower Peninsula, to locations across the world such as Austria, Berlin, Borneo, Mallorca, New York City, Vancouver and Sikkim in the Indian Himalayas.
Our facilities include a £4.2 million suite of state-of-the-art science laboratories and a high-performance computer laboratory for processing and interpreting satellite earth observation and GIS data. You may also find yourself working with our stable isotope ratio mass spectrometer, our climatic test chamber, our mineral magnetic characterisation equipment, or our automatic organic carbon analyser.
Our BA and BSc Geography degrees have Royal Geographical Society (with IBG) accreditation, and Swansea University also holds a TEF Gold award, UK Government recognition for excellent teaching in UK higher education.
Our Courses
This three-year BSc degree is suitable if you know your main interest lies in the field of Environmental Geoscience. We combine physical geography with aspects of geology, allowing you to investigate processes that have shaped the earth for hundreds of millions of years. You will study modules including Understanding and Living with Natural Hazards, Geological Records of Past Environments, and Earth History.
BSc Geography and Geographical Information Science
This three-year BSc degree is suitable if you know your interest lies in the field of Geo-Informatics. If you have a passion for computing, geography or mathematics, as well as an interest in spatial data, this is your course. By applying new technologies to geographical problems the Geography and Geographical Information Science degree help us understand human-environment relationships, and how they vary across time and space. You will study themes including Global Vegetation Patterns and Dynamics, Earth from Space – monitoring environmental change, Plate Tectonics and Global Geophysics.
BSc Geography or BSc Physical Geography
These three-year BSc degree pathways are suitable if you know your main interest lies in physical geography. We cover geographical themes including glacial environments and processes, climate change, meteorology and plate tectonics.
BA Geography or BA Human Geography
These three-year BA degree pathways are suitable if you know your main interest lies in human geography. We cover geographical themes including global environmental change and the human impact, urban modelling, creative geographies and migration.
Coming Soon! BSc Environmental Science and the Climate Emergency
This degree programme will equip you with vital skills and the necessary interdisciplinary expertise, to make a difference in the world, through the study of climate change and climate reconstruction, Earth-observation and remote sensing, environmental modelling and geographical information systems, ecology and conservation, life in the oceans and biogeography, wildfires and glaciology, rural environments and the green economy, sustainable cities and land management, natural hazards and geoengineering, and disaster capitalism and social justice.
Welsh Provision
The ability to communicate in Welsh is a skill that is valued in several sectors of employment that recruit geographers, including environmental agencies and organisations, spatial and economic planning authorities and the private sector, in addition to the field of education.
Our degree schemes in Geography are eligible for the Ysgoloriaeth Cymhelliant scholarships, as we offer 40 credits or more through Welsh at all levels. Our BSc Geography scheme, with 80 credits available at all levels, is also normally eligible for the Prif Ysgoloriaeth scholarship. We also welcome students who may wish to study just one or two specific modules through the medium of Welsh.
