Geography at Downing

• The course is incredibly varied so you never get bored. You have the opportunity to cover elements of history, economics, glaciology, politics, philosophy, hydrology, sociology, anthropology, international relations, architecture, statistics, geology, and more!
• University level geography requires you to challenge many things that you have been told at A-level and really think about what you are being taught. There is no choice over which papers you take in the first year, but the course is designed to be balanced and give you a thorough understanding of the subject as a whole. This better qualifies you to make the best course choices for you in the second and third years where you are given an increasingly diverse (and sometimes seemingly bizarre!) range of possible options to focus on.
• As is typical of Cambridge , the department has some of the world's top geographers working in both research and teaching, so you are lectured and supervised by the best of the best, often this means the same people who wrote the books you are reading.
• There is rarely more than about 8 hours of lectures in the department per week, and there are no Saturday lectures. You are set about 10 essays to write per term, and have hour long supervisions (teaching in groups of two or three students, organised by your Downing College Director of Studies) relating to each essay. This works out ideally as just over 1 essay and one supervision per week, though in reality they are not evenly spaced over the term. You are also set coursework and have occasional coursework related computer labs during the year.
• Assessment is roughly 80% end of year exam and 20% coursework.

The good stuff…

• There is a subsidised field trip to somewhere sunny like the Algarve , Majorca, or Crete during the Easter holidays in the Second year.
• The department is right next to Downing so you can roll right out of bed into lectures.
• You can do your dissertation on literally whatever you want, wherever you want and there are range of travel grants available from both College and the department to help you fund this.
• Geographers have the reputation for being very sociable and down-to-earth. There are about 100 students in each year group.

The bad stuff…

• When everyone is writing essays on the same topic at once it can sometimes be hard to get your hands on the books you need in both the college and faculty libraries.

• Geographers have to put up with an onslaught of lame jokes about advanced colouring in.

Useful links…

• Geography Department Official Website
• Official University Prospectus
• One Student's Account
• Discussion on the Downing JCR forums

Useful reading if you're really keen to get stuck in…

• Note that I read NO geography for the whole of my gap year before I came here and I've been fine!
• A first year text providing a good overview of Geography's history and theories: Livingstone, The geographical tradition : episodes in the history of a contested enterprise , 1993, Blackwell Publishing.
• Another first year book for anyone interested in globalisation: Allen and Hamnett (eds), A Shrinking World , 1995, Open University.
• Human Geography overview: Crang, Cloke, and Goodwin, Introducing Human Geographies , 2000, Arnold .
• For looking up geographical terms and horrible long words: Johnston, Gregory, Pratt and Watts (eds), The Dictionary of Human Geography 4 th Edition, and Thomas and Goudie, The Dictionary of Physical Geography 3 rd Edition, both 2000, Blackwell Publishing.

(This information has been compiled with reference to the Downing JCR forums)

By Amy Hall (ajh205)

Page last updated 12 Sep 2004 (twh23)