King's College London Geography Taster Day
On Wednesday the 15th of November, I was fortunate enough to attend a university taster day in geography. On the day, I attended a variety of activities- the first being an introduction to King's itself. King's is the 4th oldest university. The degree is extremely flexible- physical and human geography can easily be mixed. Modules include development, natural hazards, geocomputation, urban and cultural geography, spatial analysis and many more. Fieldwork represents a big component of a geography degree. Students go to Spain in their first year which is fully funded. In the second year, you are spoilt for choice- India, Hong Kong, Morocco and the US are the destinations available. Study abroad is also available- within Europe and out of (USA, Hong Kong, Africa or India)
Dr Daniel Schillerff led a lecture on climate change, he explained to us the effects of rising temperatures. Melting of the ice-caps, the disappearances of ice sheets in Antarctica and destruction of natural habitats. We also got to look at his analysis of mud samples around the world- the different hues and colours can provide a geographer with an array of information regarding climate. Following this, we were given a tour of KCL and London itself. We were taken to the chapel and were given a brief talk as to the history of it (KCL was formed responding to UCL, which was formed as a secular institution- KCL was formed as an institution combining religion and education). We were also shown Somerset House which has an ice-rink which is sponsored by Fortnum & Mason. Looking around, we had to analyse the economic, social effects of the rink itself. In our group, we decided that the rink was economically self-serving. There are so many ice-rinks in London. This one wasn't built for the community, it disrupts their day-to-day life. There were gift shops and carts who were selling souvenirs- the space normally enjoyed by students was cramped due to this being implemented.
Our last activity was a GIS mapping session using a programme called ArcGIS. This was by far my favourite session- we were instructed to create a map depicting temperature rises in the UK. The area with squares represent hotspots- places where temperatures rise above 14 degrees Celsius. We were instructed to find and correlate data. Despite not being interested hugely in physical geography, I thoroughly enjoyed data collection. Research is important at King's.
The geography degrees available are inter-disciplinary. Many students have gone off to work in NGOs, political organisations, finance, marketing or business. A geography degree does teach skills transferrable. KCL has an amazing location. The strand campus is located near the Royal Courts of Justice, Trafalgar Square and Parliament.
The university of London website has taster courses from KCL, UCL and Queen Mary.