Academic Catalog - 2024-2025

College of Social and Behavioral Sciences

Department of Geography, Planning, and Recreation

Geographic Regional Studies, Minor


Academic Information

Geography is a discipline that utilizes the concepts of location, place, and space to understand and analyze interactions between humans and their environments by bridging the social and natural sciences. The Geography Regional Studies Minor meets the interests and needs of students from a variety of majors and disciplines who seek a robust framework to connect contemporary issues occurring among places, communities, peoples, and systems around the world, and to contextualize these through various geographic scales of inquiry. This minor provides students baseline knowledge of United States and the world in terms of geographic location, natural and human resources, environmental and social systems, and economic, political, cultural, and historical contexts. Students also develop the skill of geographic thinking, which helps them to visualize diversity, identify patterns, comprehend complex connections, critically analyze change, and evaluate solutions.
 

More Information

Academic Catalog - 2024-2025

College of Social and Behavioral Sciences

Department of Geography, Planning, and Recreation

Geographic Regional Studies, Minor


Careers

What Can I Do with a Minor in Geographic Regional Studies?

The Geography Regional Studies Minor meets the needs of Northern Arizona University’s students for enhanced knowledge of geography and increased understanding of human and environmental systems in a globalized world. The knowledge base and skill set achieved through this minor enhances student understanding of locations, places, and spatial interconnections to better assess globally diverse business opportunities, geopolitical processes, and community and human development contexts, and to become wellinformed citizens. This minor capitalizes on the “geographic turn” in academic scholarship, through which multiple disciplines have embraced the utility of geographic thinking. The minor would be particularly useful in giving students spatial and environmental understandings to strengthen degrees in international affairs, tourism and hospitality, education, comparative cultural studies, women’s and gender studies, business, psychology, the arts, and humanities. Students in the physical sciences would benefit from the social science understanding that geography integrates with the underlying earth processes that are emphasized in the study of geology, biology and climatology

Career opportunities that might be pursued:
  • Researcher,
  • Foreign service
  • Intelligence specialist
  • NGO/NPO worker
  • International hospitality and tourism
  • International finance
  • Community activist
  • Social-environmental scientist
  • Teacher

With further education, one of these paths is possible:
  • Environmental management
  • Regional planning coordinator
  • International business or hospitality representative
  • Demographer
  • Marketing
  • CIA area analyst
  • Travel agent
  • Teacher/faculty

More Information

Academic Catalog - 2024-2025

College of Social and Behavioral Sciences

Department of Geography, Planning, and Recreation

Geographic Regional Studies, Minor


University Requirements

More Information

Academic Catalog - 2024-2025

College of Social and Behavioral Sciences

Department of Geography, Planning, and Recreation

Geographic Regional Studies, Minor


Overview

In addition to University Requirements:

Students may be able to use some courses to meet more than one requirement. Contact your advisor for details.

No more than fifty percent of the units used to satisfy minor requirements may be used to satisfy major requirements.

Minimum Units for Completion 18
Major GPA 2.0

Purpose Statement

Geography is a discipline that utilizes the concepts of location, place, and space to analyze and understand interactions between humans and their environments by bridging the social and natural sciences. The Geography Regional Studies Minor meets the interests and needs of students from a variety of majors and disciplines who seek a robust framework to connect contemporary issues occurring among places, communities, peoples, and systems around the world, and to contextualize these through various geographic scales of inquiry. This minor provides students baseline knowledge of United States and the world in terms of geographic location, natural and human resources, environmental and social systems, and economic, political, cultural, and historical contexts. Students also develop the skill of geographic thinking, which helps them to visualize diversity, identify patterns, comprehend complex connections, critically analyze change, and evaluate solutions. This knowledge base and skill set would allow students to enhance their own understanding, become well informed citizens, and capitalize on the “geographic turn,” through which multiple disciplines have embraced the utility of geographic thinking.

Student Learning Outcomes

More Information

Academic Catalog - 2024-2025

College of Social and Behavioral Sciences

Department of Geography, Planning, and Recreation

Geographic Regional Studies, Minor


Details

Minor Requirements
Additional Information
More Information

Academic Catalog - 2024-2025

College of Social and Behavioral Sciences

Department of Geography, Planning, and Recreation

Geographic Regional Studies, Minor


Campus Availability

More Information