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How to become Geographer in 2024

Geographer Study the nature and use of areas of the Earth's surface, relating and interpreting interactions of physical and cultural phenomena. Conduct research on physical aspects of a region, including land forms, climates, soils, plants, and animals, and conduct research on the spatial implications of human activities within a given area, including social characteristics, economic activities, and political organization, as well as researching interdependence between regions at scales ranging from local to global.

Geographer is Also Know as

In different settings, Geographer is titled as

  • Earth Observations Scientist
  • Geographer
  • GIS Coordinator (Geographic Information Systems Coordinator)
  • GIS Geographer (Geographic Information Systems Geographer)
  • GIS Physical Scientist (Geographic Information Systems Physical Scientist)
  • Scientist

Education and Training of Geographer

Geographer is categorized in Job Zone Four: Considerable Preparation Needed

Experience Required for Geographer

A considerable amount of work-related skill, knowledge, or experience is needed for these occupations. For example, an accountant must complete four years of college and work for several years in accounting to be considered qualified.

Education Required for Geographer

Most of these occupations require a four-year bachelor's degree, but some do not.

Degrees Related to Geographer

Training Required for Geographer

Employees in these occupations usually need several years of work-related experience, on-the-job training, and/or vocational training.

Related Ocuupations

Some Ocuupations related to Geographer in different industries are

What Do Geographer do?

  • Create and modify maps, graphs, or diagrams, using geographical information software and related equipment, and principles of cartography, such as coordinate systems, longitude, latitude, elevation, topography, and map scales.
  • Write and present reports of research findings.
  • Develop, operate, and maintain geographical information computer systems, including hardware, software, plotters, digitizers, printers, and video cameras.
  • Locate and obtain existing geographic information databases.
  • Analyze geographic distributions of physical and cultural phenomena on local, regional, continental, or global scales.
  • Teach geography.
  • Gather and compile geographic data from sources such as censuses, field observations, satellite imagery, aerial photographs, and existing maps.
  • Conduct field work at outdoor sites.
  • Study the economic, political, and cultural characteristics of a specific region's population.
  • Provide consulting services in fields such as resource development and management, business location and market area analysis, environmental hazards, regional cultural history, and urban social planning.
  • Collect data on physical characteristics of specified areas, such as geological formations, climates, and vegetation, using surveying or meteorological equipment.
  • Provide geographical information systems support to the private and public sectors.

Qualities of Good Geographer

  • Written Comprehension: The ability to read and understand information and ideas presented in writing.
  • Written Expression: The ability to communicate information and ideas in writing so others will understand.
  • Inductive Reasoning: The ability to combine pieces of information to form general rules or conclusions (includes finding a relationship among seemingly unrelated events).
  • Oral Expression: The ability to communicate information and ideas in speaking so others will understand.
  • Oral Comprehension: The ability to listen to and understand information and ideas presented through spoken words and sentences.
  • Deductive Reasoning: The ability to apply general rules to specific problems to produce answers that make sense.
  • Near Vision: The ability to see details at close range (within a few feet of the observer).
  • Speech Clarity: The ability to speak clearly so others can understand you.
  • Speech Recognition: The ability to identify and understand the speech of another person.
  • Information Ordering: The ability to arrange things or actions in a certain order or pattern according to a specific rule or set of rules (e.g., patterns of numbers, letters, words, pictures, mathematical operations).
  • Category Flexibility: The ability to generate or use different sets of rules for combining or grouping things in different ways.
  • Problem Sensitivity: The ability to tell when something is wrong or is likely to go wrong. It does not involve solving the problem, only recognizing that there is a problem.
  • Fluency of Ideas: The ability to come up with a number of ideas about a topic (the number of ideas is important, not their quality, correctness, or creativity).
  • Flexibility of Closure: The ability to identify or detect a known pattern (a figure, object, word, or sound) that is hidden in other distracting material.
  • Perceptual Speed: The ability to quickly and accurately compare similarities and differences among sets of letters, numbers, objects, pictures, or patterns. The things to be compared may be presented at the same time or one after the other. This ability also includes comparing a presented object with a remembered object.
  • Originality: The ability to come up with unusual or clever ideas about a given topic or situation, or to develop creative ways to solve a problem.
  • Mathematical Reasoning: The ability to choose the right mathematical methods or formulas to solve a problem.
  • Visualization: The ability to imagine how something will look after it is moved around or when its parts are moved or rearranged.
  • Far Vision: The ability to see details at a distance.
  • Number Facility: The ability to add, subtract, multiply, or divide quickly and correctly.
  • Selective Attention: The ability to concentrate on a task over a period of time without being distracted.
  • Memorization: The ability to remember information such as words, numbers, pictures, and procedures.
  • Visual Color Discrimination: The ability to match or detect differences between colors, including shades of color and brightness.
  • Speed of Closure: The ability to quickly make sense of, combine, and organize information into meaningful patterns.
  • Time Sharing: The ability to shift back and forth between two or more activities or sources of information (such as speech, sounds, touch, or other sources).
  • Trunk Strength: The ability to use your abdominal and lower back muscles to support part of the body repeatedly or continuously over time without "giving out" or fatiguing.
  • Auditory Attention: The ability to focus on a single source of sound in the presence of other distracting sounds.
  • Hearing Sensitivity: The ability to detect or tell the differences between sounds that vary in pitch and loudness.
  • Dynamic Strength: The ability to exert muscle force repeatedly or continuously over time. This involves muscular endurance and resistance to muscle fatigue.
  • Depth Perception: The ability to judge which of several objects is closer or farther away from you, or to judge the distance between you and an object.
  • Finger Dexterity: The ability to make precisely coordinated movements of the fingers of one or both hands to grasp, manipulate, or assemble very small objects.
  • Wrist-Finger Speed: The ability to make fast, simple, repeated movements of the fingers, hands, and wrists.
  • Manual Dexterity: The ability to quickly move your hand, your hand together with your arm, or your two hands to grasp, manipulate, or assemble objects.
  • Spatial Orientation: The ability to know your location in relation to the environment or to know where other objects are in relation to you.
  • Glare Sensitivity: The ability to see objects in the presence of a glare or bright lighting.
  • Extent Flexibility: The ability to bend, stretch, twist, or reach with your body, arms, and/or legs.
  • Control Precision: The ability to quickly and repeatedly adjust the controls of a machine or a vehicle to exact positions.
  • Arm-Hand Steadiness: The ability to keep your hand and arm steady while moving your arm or while holding your arm and hand in one position.
  • Sound Localization: The ability to tell the direction from which a sound originated.
  • Peripheral Vision: The ability to see objects or movement of objects to one's side when the eyes are looking ahead.
  • Night Vision: The ability to see under low-light conditions.
  • Gross Body Coordination: The ability to coordinate the movement of your arms, legs, and torso together when the whole body is in motion.
  • Gross Body Equilibrium: The ability to keep or regain your body balance or stay upright when in an unstable position.
  • Dynamic Flexibility: The ability to quickly and repeatedly bend, stretch, twist, or reach out with your body, arms, and/or legs.
  • Stamina: The ability to exert yourself physically over long periods of time without getting winded or out of breath.
  • Explosive Strength: The ability to use short bursts of muscle force to propel oneself (as in jumping or sprinting), or to throw an object.
  • Static Strength: The ability to exert maximum muscle force to lift, push, pull, or carry objects.
  • Speed of Limb Movement: The ability to quickly move the arms and legs.
  • Reaction Time: The ability to quickly respond (with the hand, finger, or foot) to a signal (sound, light, picture) when it appears.
  • Rate Control: The ability to time your movements or the movement of a piece of equipment in anticipation of changes in the speed and/or direction of a moving object or scene.
  • Response Orientation: The ability to choose quickly between two or more movements in response to two or more different signals (lights, sounds, pictures). It includes the speed with which the correct response is started with the hand, foot, or other body part.
  • Multilimb Coordination: The ability to coordinate two or more limbs (for example, two arms, two legs, or one leg and one arm) while sitting, standing, or lying down. It does not involve performing the activities while the whole body is in motion.

Tools Used by Geographer

  • Abney levels
  • All terrain vehicles ATV
  • Anemometers
  • Atomic emission spectroscopes
  • Automatic levels
  • Cathodoluminescence microscopes
  • Chain saws
  • Compaction meters
  • Conductivity meters
  • Crosscut saws
  • Deionizers
  • Demagnetizing equipment
  • Desktop computers
  • Digital cameras
  • Digital imaging microscopes
  • Digital video cameras
  • Digitizers
  • Dissolved oxygen meters
  • Drying ovens
  • Dutch augers
  • Electromagnetic current meters
  • Electronic precision balances
  • Flatbed scanners
  • Flow meters
  • Four wheel drive 4WD vehicles
  • Fume hoods
  • Gas-mixing furnaces
  • Global positioning system GPS receivers
  • Grab samplers
  • Gravity convection ovens
  • Ground penetrating radar GPR
  • Handheld data loggers
  • High temperature laboratory box furnaces
  • High-speed centrifuges
  • Hiller corers
  • Humidity sensors
  • Hydrometers
  • Infrared IR thermometers
  • Ion chromatographs
  • Laboratory analytical balances
  • Laboratory dropping pipettes
  • Laboratory sample splitters
  • Laptop computers
  • Large format printers
  • Laser levels
  • Laser particle sizers
  • Livingstone corers
  • Lysimeters
  • Mechanical current meters
  • Muffle furnaces
  • Optical comparators
  • Personal computers
  • Personal digital assistants PDA
  • Petrographic microscopes
  • pH analyzers
  • Phase contrast microscopes
  • Photosynthetically active radiation PAR meters
  • Plotters
  • Polarizing microscopes
  • Portable data collectors
  • Portable fume hoods
  • Portable weather stations
  • Powered rock-coring drills
  • Powered vibracorers
  • Pressure plate apparatus
  • Research motorboats
  • Rock saws
  • Russian corers
  • Salinity meters
  • Sample storage refrigerators
  • Scanning electron microscopes SEM
  • Sediment coring equipment
  • Sediment samplers
  • Sediment traps
  • Seismic stations
  • Sieve shakers
  • Soil mixers
  • Soil moisture meters
  • Soil samplers
  • Sonic anemometers
  • Sonic sifters
  • Spinner magnetometers
  • Stereo light microscopes
  • Stereo zoom microscopes
  • Stereographic microscopes
  • Submersible pressure sensors
  • Survey altimeters
  • Tablet computers
  • Temperature sensors
  • Theodolites
  • Total dissolved solids TDS meters
  • Total stations
  • Tree increment borers
  • Truck-mounted drilling rigs
  • Turbidity probes
  • Ultrasonic sieving systems
  • Video cameras
  • Video microscopes
  • Water current meters
  • Water samplers
  • Wind direction sensors
  • X ray diffraction equipment
  • X ray diffractometers

Technology Skills required for Geographer

  • ACD Systems Canvas
  • Adobe Dreamweaver
  • Adobe Photoshop
  • Autodesk AutoCAD
  • Caliper Maptitude
  • Clark Labs IDRISI Andes
  • Corel CorelDraw Graphics Suite
  • ESRI ArcGIS software
  • ESRI ArcIMS
  • ESRI ArcInfo
  • ESRI ArcView
  • Geographic information system GIS software
  • Geographic information system GIS systems
  • Geographic resources analysis support system GRASS
  • Golden Software Grapher
  • Golden Software Surfer
  • Groundwater Vistas
  • HydroSOLVE AQTESOLV
  • IBM SPSS Statistics
  • ITT Visual Information Solutions ENVI
  • Leica Geosystems ERDAS IMAGINE
  • Lemkesoft GraphicConverter
  • MapInfo MapMarker
  • Martin D Adamiker's TruFlite
  • Microsoft Excel
  • Microsoft Internet Explorer
  • Microsoft Office software
  • Microsoft Outlook
  • Microsoft PowerPoint
  • Microsoft Word
  • Minitab
  • MODPATH
  • Pattern searching software
  • RIVERMorph
  • RockWare MODFLOW
  • SAS
  • Systat Software SigmaPlot
  • The MathWorks MATLAB
  • Trimble Pathfinder Office
  • Wolfram Research Mathematica