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Major, Minor and Modifications

Overview

The Geography Major consists of ten courses spread across five categories: introductory, methods, breadth, depth, and culminating experience.  Introductory courses provide an overview of the field of geography, and ground students in the fundamentals of geography.  Methods courses impart the qualitative and quantitative tools that geographers use to explore people and environment in space.  Breadth courses expose students to the diversity of geography as a discipline.  Depth courses allow students to more substantively engage an area of interest.  Finally, the culminating experience synthesizes students' knowledge of geography through deep discussions of key and current literature in a seminar format.

The Department of Geography also offers a Geography Minor, a Geography Major Modified, Major Modification with Geography, an Urban Studies Minor, and a Climate Change Science Minor. 

Planning and Advising

Students looking to declare a major or minor should start with reviewing DartWorks
https://www.dartmouth.edu/reg/guides/dartworks/declare_major_or_minor.html.

Worksheets are provided below to guide you through the process, and there are descriptions of all Geography majors and minors in the Organization, Regulations, and Courses Catalog: http://dartmouth.smartcatalogiq.com/current/orc/Departments-Programs-Undergraduate/Geography.  

A list of future courses to help you plan can be found here:
https://geography.dartmouth.edu/undergraduate/courses.

The Geography curriculum has recently changed.  Students graduating '21-'23 have the option to use the old (denoted "21-23" in the filename and worksheet title) or new major and minor requirements, students graduating '24 and beyond must use the new major and minor requirements.

Geography Honors Program

Students apply to the honors thesis program by submitting a formal letter of application and a preliminary proposal to the department in the Junior Year Spring Term. The department offers preliminary acceptance to the honors program based on these documents and an assessment of major and overall GPA.  Proposals and research plans are developed further in Geography 90 during Senior Year Fall Term, with research occurring anytime Junior Year Summer Term to Senior Year Winter Term.  Thesis public presentation and defense occurs in Senior Year May, with the final draft due shortly after the defense.

Read more about the Senior Honors Thesis program.