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Thinking about Studying GIS / Geomatics

posted by Satri on Wednesday March 21, @05:05PM   Printer-friendly   Email story  Permalink  Trackback URI  Slashdotthis  Diggthis  Del.icio.us
from the take-the-dive-into-a-great-future dept.
Ask Slashgeo GIS Education
bloc writes "I hope I'm posting this in the right place. I'm thinking about getting either a BSi in Geography with a diploma in GIS (at my preferred university) or a degree in Geomatics. How are the two different? Would you strongly recommend one over the other? I get the impression that a lot of people with Geography degrees end up teaching, am I right in thinking that? Also, I'm not a strong math person, will this really hold me back? Thanks for the help" See related stories.

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Application Domains: Geography Departments Worldwide 2 comments [+]
Very Spatial links to a searchable database of Geography Departments around the world. From the site: "As of November 2nd, 2005 there are links to 1116 Departments in 90 Countries of which 861 have already signed the "Add Department Form" and thus can be searched by Country, Keyword and Researchfields."
Application Domains: GIS and Geography at Harvard [+]
GeoPlace runs an article on Harvard's history of their geography department. From the article's conclusion: "Just as the loss of geography at Harvard led to others emulating the world’s No. 1 university, so the addition of geography may lead to a stampede of reintroductions. Harvard’s action may be a “tipping point” for the discipline’s fortunes, and the universities that are slowest to react may be left with “slim pickings” in the job market. The race to recruit the best GIScientists just got a lot more interesting. "
Application Domains: MIT OpenCourseWare Geospatial Courses [+]
The spanish language Geomatics blog links to two free MIT OpenCourseWare geospatial courses: Environmental Engineering Applications of Geographic Information Systems and Spatial Database Management and Advanced Geographic Information Systems. The two descriptions: "[first course] This graduate seminar is taught in a lecture and lab exercise format. The subject matter is tailored to introduce Environmental Engineering students to the use and potential of Geographic Information Systems in their discipline. Lectures will cover the general concepts of GIS use and introduce the material in the exercises that demonstrate the practical application of GIS. [second course] This class offers a very in-depth set of materials on spatial database management, including materials on the tools needed to work in spatial database management, and the applications of that data to real-life problem solving. Exercises and tools for working with SQL, as well as sample database sets, are provided. A real-life final project is presented in the projects section." Related, APB links to a series of online talks on geovisualization.
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  • math

    (Score:2, Interesting)
    by mdmarkus (544) on Wednesday March 21, @09:10PM (#1330)
    Hard to say without knowing which universities. Geography / geomatics / geospatial science &c' are a bit fluid around the edges. But if your focus is GIS, the more math you can deal with, the better, especially statistics.
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  • Personal comments

    (Score:2)
    by Satri (3) on Thursday March 22, @09:14AM (#1332)
    ( http://alexandreleroux.blogspot.com/ | Last Journal: Friday March 17, @05:07PM )
    Geography vs Geomatics: even if the two significantly overlap, they are doubtlessly quite different. Let's refer to wikipedia to distinguish geography [wikipedia.org] from geomatics [wikipedia.org]. Of course, you must double-check with the university itself, since often the name of the degree and the content can differ. Even if both can be fun careers, I tend to believe geomatics is more likely to assure a more diversified poll of jobs.

    Maths: if you like what you're doing, it should be a problem. Geospatial technologies are so broad and omnipresent there's plenty of space for people wanting to do a lot of maths or the inverse.
    [ Reply to This ]

  • BS Degree AND computer skills

    (Score:2, Insightful)
    by Ocho (991) on Thursday March 22, @10:04AM (#1335)
    I have a Geography degree and am not a teacher! My course of study included cartography as well as GIS. I might add that if you are going the GIS route it will benefit you greatly to have computer skills. Since you'll probably be working on the nicest computers and peripherals (plotters, scanners, digitizers, etc) people will assume you know a lot about computers in general so it pays to actually know it. I landed my first job with a small firm because I could do GIS AND manage their network/servers/email/website/printers. This is not to mention how helpful it will be when learning new GIS tools.
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