B.A. in Geography & Environmental Studies

The B.A. requires a minimum of 48 credits, including 44 credits in GES courses. Internship courses (GES 482, GES 483, GES 497, GES 498) and Independent Study courses (GES 491) cannot be used as electives or count toward the minimum number of credits required for the B.A. degree.

Interested in a particular career pathway or topic? See the optional GES undergraduate streams for help in deciding which courses to take!

All students are required to take the following:

Required GES Courses (14 credit hours)

  • GES 102 – Human Geography (3)
    or
    GES 120 – Environmental Science & Conservation (3)
  • GES 110 – Physical Geography (3)
  • GES 286 – Exploring the Environment: A Geo-Spatial Perspective (4)
  • GES 386 – Introduction to GIS (4)

GES Electives (minimum 30 credit hours)

  • Four (4) Human Geography/Environmental Studies/Policy courses at the 300 and/or 400 level (GES 320 – 369, and GES 420 – 469). Selected topics courses (GES 302, GES 400) designated by faculty advisor as meeting the requirement can be counted. One course must be at the 400 level. (Minimum 12 credit hours)
  • Two (2) Physical Geography/Environmental Science courses at the 300 and/or 400 level (GES 305 – GES 319, and GES 404 – GES 419). Selected topics courses (GES 302, GES 400) designated by faculty advisor as meeting the requirement can be counted. (Minimum 6 credit hours)
  • Four (4) additional GES electives at the 300 or 400 level. One of the four courses must be at the 400 level. (Minimum 12 credit hours)

Required Courses Outside the GES Department (4 credit hours)

Statistics

  • STAT 121 – Introduction to Statistics for the Social Sciences (4)
    or
  • STAT 350 – Statistics with Applications in Biological Sciences (4)
    or
  • STAT 351 – Applied Statistics for Business and Economics (4)
    or
  • STAT 355 – Introduction to Probability & Statistics for Science and Engineering (4)