Geography

• Why Study Geography at Christ's?
• Course structure and content
• Teaching
• What do our students think?
• How to apply
  • Subjects: what do you need?
  • Interviews
  • Offers
• Helpful resources
• Open Days and Online Events
• Need more information?

Why study Geography at Christ's?

At Cambridge, the Department of Geography has over 40 academic staff and admits around 100 undergraduates every year, making it one of the largest single-honours courses in the UK. And it’s just six minutes’ walk away from Christ’s.

Our graduates go on to further studies in areas such as Polar Studies and Climate Change, and professions including law, finance, international development, social anthropology and qualitative research.
 

Course structure and content

The Cambridge Geography course (or ‘tripos’) is a three-year degree. Everyone starts off with the same grounding in physical and human geography before specialising in later years.

Please visit the University website for full details - see the Geography course content and structure, including the course film. You will also find information on the Department of Geography page for prospective students. If you have further questions about course content, please contact undergraduate.enquiries@geog.cam.ac.uk.

Teaching

The Geography course involves a wide range of lectures at the Department of Geography, practical classes, skills training and field courses. At College level, you also have small-group teaching sessions – known as supervisions – organised by your Director of Studies at Christ’s to provide personalised feedback and further discussion on your work. Every week you usually write an essay for each supervision and attend lectures for the options you’re taking. This film (3.5 mins) provides a useful introduction to supervision teaching and do read the student profiles in the section below to get a sense of what it's like to study Geography.

The Director of Studies in Geography at Christ's is Dr Ilona Kater, and we also have three academics in Geography (we call them Fellows) – Dr Rebecca Dell, Professor Sarah Radcliffe, and Professor Ash Amin, who also serves as Foreign Secretary at the British Academy. All three are academic staff in the Department of Geography.

What do our students think?

Read about the experiences of Rebecca, Immi, Rohan, Belinda, Elise and Pascual on the Geography course at Christ’s - they discuss their day-to-day life and timetable, their motivations and choices, and how they found the application process and settling in when they arrived.

If you’d like to hear from other Christ's students, the Christ's student Q&A film is also helpful, and do visit our Student Profiles page.

How to apply

Visit How to Apply for full details and a timeline of the application process. We welcome applicants from all backgrounds and school types, all over the world. If you're applying from outside the UK, please read our international students section.

Subjects: what do you need?

To apply for Geography you must take

• Geography as one of your A-levels, IB Highers, Scottish Advanced Highers or equivalent qualifications.

Apart from Geography, we don’t require you to study any specific subjects. A Geography degree can be approached from an arts, sciences or social sciences background, depending on your interests. If you would like to find out more about common subjects that prospective Geography students take, please see the entry requirements tab in the undergraduate Geography course information.

We encourage students to attend one of our regular Subject Matters webinars for help with choosing Post-16 subjects for competitive university applications. This webinar is pitched for students aged 14-16 though it is also possible to attend when you have started sixth form. 

Interviews

If we select you for interviews, these usually take place in early December. At Christ's we continue do all of our interviews online. You can have your interviews either at home (most applicants do this) or at school (if easier). Those selected for interviews are normally interviewed for 35-50 minutes in total. At Christ’s, we usually split the time into two interviews with academics in Geography; one with human geography specialists and the other with physical geography specialists. We may give you a short passage to read just before one of the interviews which you discuss during the following interview. If relevant, details will be in your invitation to interview.

Further, more general information about interviews (including two useful films) is available in the Cambridge interviews section, and it's worth also having a look at supervisions (short film here), as interviews are similar to what you do every week as a Cambridge student.

There is no written assessment to take for Geography at Christ's College.

Offers

At Christ's we don’t have fixed quotas for places, so the number of students we admit in any year depends on the strengths of the applicants. In Geography we aim to admit around four students each year.

We define the terms of each offer individually, but for Geography our typical offer is

• A*AA at A-level including Geography
• 42 points overall in the International Baccalaureate with 7,7,6 in Higher Level subjects including Geography
• A1, A2, A2 in three Scottish Advanced Highers including Geography

You need to be academically ambitious: the majority of Christ's students arrive with higher grades than are required.

If you’re taking another qualification, we expect you to be working at or close to the top of the mark range i.e.

• Baccalauréat français international (BFI): 17 (mention très bien) out of 20 overall, with a minimum of 17 in relevant subjects including Geography
• European Baccalaureate: at least 85% overall, with 9/10 in relevant subjects including Geography

You can look up other qualifications in the offer levels for other exam systems and international entry requirements, and if you are applying from outside the UK please read the Christ's international students section for further information and check the country pages.

If you will have finished school when you apply, please also read about post-qualification applications, taking a gap year, and, if relevant, applying from a university.

Helpful resources

Events (online / in person)

Our open days and events page advertises regular online opportunities as well as events you can attend if you are able to visit Cambridge and Christ's College. If you can, sign up for a College Open Day (our October, February and September events normally include a meeting with a subject specialist). Between January and August we also run regular webinars:

• Cambridge for Beginners
• Subject Matters: The importance of post-16 subject choices (this one is also run Sept - Nov)
• Personal Statements and preparing for an application

Further subject-specific opportunities you might wish to consider include Subject Masterclasses organised by Cambridge Admissions Office, and subject-specific talks in the July Cambridge Open Days. If you are a UK student from a background where there is little tradition of entry to Higher Education, you can apply to attend a Sutton Trust Summer School in Geography or to shadow a current undergraduate studying Geography via the Cambridge SU Shadowing Scheme (do be aware that there's a high proportion of applicants to places for both of these last two opportunities so please don't be discouraged if you don't get a place).

Need more information?

For a fuller picture of what the course involves, take a look at Undergraduate Geography admissions on the University website and visit the Department of Geography too.

If you can’t find what you need, please contact us at admissions@christs.cam.ac.uk and we’ll do our best to help.

For further careers information see:

• Choosing a career with Geography (Royal Society of Geography page)
• What do Geographers do after their degrees (Cambridge Geography Department page)
• Cambridge Geography careers data
   

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