Objectives
The undergraduate Licence in Geography and Planning enables students to acquire the fundamentals of the discipline. This is taught via a range of course units, combined with a substantial presence in the field. The programme offers a solid training for those students who are planning to enter into research, or who envisage a career in professions related to the environment, to planning and territorial development, or in more traditional areas such as teaching (at any level).
In order to enable students to progressively specialise in their chosen profession, there is a choice of four possible subject pathways in the third year of study. These are: the Geography: ‘Planning and the Environment’ (GAE) pathway, the ‘Geography and Territorial Development’ (GDT) pathway, the ‘Social, Cultural and Political Geography’ (GSCP) pathway, and finally the ‘Geography: Resources and Environmental Management’ (GERE) pathway. Each of these pathways enables students to tackle, within the context of their chosen specialism, the issues arising from and concerns relative to complex systems at local and global level.
By the end of this programme of study, students will have good command of following areas: a capacity to rethink and present an argument in relation to a particular case; a command of both geography-specific methods (cartography, GIS) and methods used in social sciences more generally (statistics, survey techniques, studying the semiotics of images), and an ability to communicate an overview of a line of thought, be it in written, graphical or digital form.
Some course units have been merged with either the undergraduate Licence in Information and Communications Studies, or the undergraduate Licence in History. As a result, there are a number of pathways into other courses at the end of the first, second and third semesters of this Licence, thus enabling students to redirect the course of their studies. Students in the first year of the undergraduate Licence in Geography are therefore able to change direction towards one of these two programmes (subject to approval from the teaching boards of the disciplines concerned).
After the second year of the undergraduate Licence in Geography, students may also choose to redirect their studies towards a choice of two, more vocational, specialisms in planning. The third year of the undergraduate Licence in ‘Future Development: Urban Planning and Sustainable Regional Development’ (AUDTD) offers a more urban-oriented pathway, whilst the vocational undergraduate Licence in ‘Enhancement, Organisation and Mediation in Rural Territories’ (VAMTR) offers a more rural perspective.
The undergraduate Licence in Geography benefits from a system whereby students are guided and supported with the help of a tutor during their first year, and then more generally via a system of evaluation based on continuous assessment and attendance.
Training content
Three years of study
First year of undergraduate study (Licence 1)
This first year of the undergraduate Licence in Geography (L1) is made up of course units that focus specifically on the fundamental principles of geography (human, physical, regional, and political). There are also units that leave students the possibility of a possible shift in the direction of their study, either towards the undergraduate Licence in Information and Communication Studies, or towards the undergraduate Licence in History.
Second year of undergraduate study (Licence 2)
This second year of the undergraduate Licence in Geography (L2) strengthens the specific focus on fundamental course units, exploring both geography as an academic discipline, and the methodologies on which this discipline is based. Students still have the possibility of re-orientating their individual study pathways towards the Licence in Information and Communication Studies on the one hand, or in History on the other. This second year also offers additional training, giving students a further possibility of re-orienting their study pathways: towards the third year of the undergraduate Licence in ‘Future Development: Urban Planning and Sustainable Regional Development’ (AUDTD), or the vocational undergraduate Licence programme in ‘Enhancement, Organisation and Mediation in Rural Territories’ (VAMTR).
Third year of undergraduate study (Licence 3)
This second year of the undergraduate Licence in Geography (L3) represents the completion of the first phase of higher education in Geography. There is a choice of four specific pathways.
- The ‘Geography: Planning and the Environment’ (GAE) pathway focuses on an understanding and analysis of territorial interventions, within a context that is characterised by global change. The course units intend to teach an understanding of the key drivers of action, as well as the interaction at play between current practices, the issues at stake, and processes and norms within the sectors of planning and environmental management. This is seen within the context of a need to ensure sustainability at all levels (from international to local), and within differing contexts (northern and southern, for example).
- The key objective of the ‘Geography and Territorial Development’ (GDT) pathway is the more thorough study of the concept of development. It’s a question of exploring the differing current understandings; of studying the economic and political models that inspire them; and of analysing the contexts within which their resulting strategies and solutions fall.
- The ‘Social, Cultural and Political Geography’ (GSCP) pathway aims to consider space and spatial distributions through the prism of the key social and cultural questions currently being raised in contemporary, globalised societies. These include the themes of image, identity, justice, territory, landscape, the body, and imprisonment. Within this framework, students will tackle a range of image formats, and the different methods of analysing them. All of these questions will be considered from the perspectives of: modes of representation, social and cultural practices, and political issues affecting individuals and groups within societies.
- The ‘Geography: Resources and Environmental Management’ (GERE) pathway supplies the fundamental basics necessary for an understanding of environmental phenomena and the management of natural resources. Course units have been constructed around elements that are common to disciplines of geography and the earth and life sciences, as well as their particular study methods (geological mapping, GIS, remote sensing, geophysical surveys using auscultation, studies in the field, and so on).
Access condition
Find information regarding enrolment procedures and the supporting documents to be provided, according to your profile and your level of studies :
Career pathways
The ‘Geography: Planning and the Environment’ (GAE) pathway enables students to secure posts as research managers or project managers within local government, research departments, NGOs, and associations. The ‘Geography and Territorial Development’ (GDT) pathway can lead to careers linked to territorial development, on local and international levels alike, or careers linked to public and private relief efforts (within international organisations and NGOs). The ‘Social, Cultural and Political Geography’ (GSCP) pathway can lead to further study within a Master’s in geography, geopolitics, culture, heritage, landscape or tourism. The ‘Geography: Resources and Environmental Management’ (GERE) pathway can lead to careers related to the management and resolution of problems in the fields of earth science and geoscience, or to the proposal and organisation of projects to promote scientific popularisation.
Whatever their chosen pathway, students can also access:
- professions related to teaching;
- professions related to territorial planning, to the management of environmental resources and to development;
- professions related to encouraging the decentralisation of planning decisions;
- professions related to geomatics, including computer-aided design (CAO) and geographic information systems (GIS).
Further studies
The undergraduate Licence in Geography allows students to choose from the range of Masters’ in Geography and Planning on offer, in accordance with their chosen study pathway, and to access training programmes that will prepare them for a range of entry examinations, for example for entry into teaching, Institutes of Political Studies (IEP), journalism schools, landscape architecture schools and local government.
