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Geography & Cartography

What you'll do in college

This interdisciplinary group studies the spatial relationships between people, places, and the planet. Coursework blends physical geography, human geography, cartography, and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) with statistics, urban studies, and remote sensing. You will learn how to design maps, analyze satellite imagery, model population movement, and use spatial data to investigate everything from disease outbreaks to gerrymandering.

What you'll do after college

Geography grads have become surprisingly hot hires as every industry tries to make sense of location data. They work as GIS analysts at tech firms, cartographers at mapping companies, urban planners for city governments, transportation logisticians, and intelligence analysts for federal agencies. Many also pursue advanced work in climate modeling, public health geography, or commercial real estate analytics.

Selectivity vs. earnings

By acceptance rate

$56,864
366
100–72%
$59,411
719
72–43%
$61,278
347
42–0%
Acceptance rate · bar = degree-weighted adjusted 5-year earnings

By SAT median

$56,548
254
400–1110
$59,268
492
1115–1295
$67,432
244
1325–1600
Median SAT · bar = degree-weighted adjusted 5-year earnings

Majors in this category

Major Colleges Degrees Male/Female Intl 5yr Earn
Geography & Cartography 256 2,922 59% / 41% 3% $57,069
Geography 220 1,969 58% / 42% 2% $57,744
Geography and Environmental Studies 29 459 49% / 51% 4% $51,664
Geographic Information Science and Cartography 31 317 68% / 32% 7% $60,173
Geographic Information Science 17 57 74% / 26% 2% $57,771
Geospatial Information Science 1 39 85% / 15% 3%
Geography and Geographic Information Science 1 24 54% / 33% 25%
Geography and Environmental Sciences 1 21 67% / 33% 0%
Cartography and Geographic Information Systems 1 13 77% / 23% 8% $66,837
Geomatics 3 10 90% / 10% 0%
Geography and Geospatial Science 1 8 75% / 25% 12%
Geospatial Sciences 1 5 60% / 40% 20%