Geography

[Ramblin Rich]

Visiting local secondary schools prior to deciding where to pick for our daughter, I was very impressed to see the following quote from the late lamented Terry Pratchett engraved on a window outside the geography department at one school:

“Geography is just physics slowed down, with a couple of trees stuck in it.”

I should point out that I really enjoyed geography, can still spend several hours reading maps and I just wish I'd taken a higher level course.

[Peter Kazmierczak]

At grammar school, in the second form we had to choose between history or geography. I chose the latter, so never got a history qualification of any sort.

 

Ironically, years down the line,  I ended-up managing all the local and family history resources for an organisation.

[jjb1970]

Interesting to make a comparison with those of my school fellows who went to uni - salary wise (not necessarily an ideal comparator for all sorts of reasons) I don't think I lost out compared with them.  Job interest wise I think I won by a large margin but then I would say that wouldn't I although very few of them got around Europe or further afield than I have managed for work related reasons.  Skills wise is an interesting comparison because I undoubtedly have a wider range of trained & acquired skills in various fields than all of those I still know anything about.  So overall variety wise I don't think I lost out in any way - apart from a few letters after my name - by not going to uni and in many respects I think I probably benefitted from an earlier entry to the workplace.

 

Another interesting comparison is with my contemporary Management Trainees as the vast majority were graduates.  A few of them rose to pretty high levels in the industry with a couple becoming MDs of operating companies post privatisation while one or two others rose to Executive grade level elsewhere in the industry and one who left has done very well in another area but the majority of those who stayed in the railway didn't do any better promotion wise that us non-graduates.   So perhaps it isn't all down to having a uni education but to many other things instead.   Incidentally my former Headmaster spoke to me a few months after I left school and asked 'where I was' - when I told him it was very clear from his face that my failure to progress in academia amounted to some sort of eternal damnation;  there is still a lot to be said for the vocational route, whatever he might have thought.

 

I think that an important part of making a good go of any career is to love what you do. OK, I have known people whose interest in what they did was limited to clocking in and clocking out and taking the money who did do an excellent job and were successful but most people I know who've done well career wise had a genuine passion for what they did. An interesting job doesn't pay a mortgage, but it may enthuse you to perform well and to climb the greasy pole, and that may very well pay the mortgage.

 

Ultimately I think this goes back to what education is about and what people want out of life. And what we want out of life is something that we all have to decide for ourselves, I love my work but life is about more than work. Money isn't everything but whether we like it or not, or whether it is right or wrong we can't avoid the simple reality that many of the things many people want out of life such as pursuing hobbies or interests, requires a certain income. When I was at school most of my teachers considered looking at income potential and career opportunities when deciding what to do after school or what course to study at university was unclean and selling out but they were doing their pupils no favours by telling them to just do what they want and not worry about anything as vulgar as whether it'd be worth anything to a potential employer. Yes, you should study something you love or seek employment you enjoy, but it's entirely sensible to consider the brass tacks of career and income potential. My teachers wanted me to go to art college (of all things) as I was very good at art and still love art, when I told them that one reason I was going to do an engineering cadetship in the MN was that I considered I'd have a better career and earn more you'd have thought I'd suggested committing an indecent act with the Queen Mother or something from the reaction I got. Most of my class mates who did go to university ended up temping for local government departments, of course there is nothing bad about that if they enjoyed it but most of them hated it and did it because it was all they could get and some of them got quite bitter about it all.

 

None of which is to criticise or advise kids not to go to university, but rather to think about what they want out of it and where it'll take them.

[Shadow]

Test your geography here!

 

https://lizardpoint.com/geography/europe-quiz.php

[Tony_S]

Until the subject disappeared from the curriculum at the college, my wife was employed as a geography lecturer. To avoid unemployment she reinvented herself as a sociologist. Sociology is cheaper to teach than geography. However she still loved her original subject and according to our son his Mum could chat about the geography of wherever we were for hours on our holidays to somewhere in France. Matthew managed in his teenage years to retreat into his walkman to obscure the lecture. This meant he wasn't really attracted to geography and had no intention of studying it beyond GCSE. He wanted to take A level history but was informed his poor grade at English GCSE meant history wasn't recommended. So he took geography (reluctantly). He did very well and ended up at university studying geography. What amuses his mother is that he intends a career as an academic in surprisingly , geography.

Edited October 12, 2017 by Tony_S

[Ozexpatriate]

Test your geography here!

 

https://lizardpoint.com/geography/europe-quiz.php

I liked this.

 

It makes you face your ignorance.

 

Somehow I aced all the 'stans' and got 100% of the Asian nations (without needing second guesses). Not having learned any of the 'stans' in my school days I still find them tricky but something must have stuck. I still find central America hard to remember and my scores in Africa were terrible. Once upon a time I could get them all correct, but the names of the African nations are not what I learned in primary school so many years ago.

[chrisf]

It's the summer of 1964 and O Levels were over.  The choice of A Level options was laid before us and normally mild-mannered teachers turned into recruiting sergeants.  Mr Riach, who taught Geography, was on fine form.  "I want you to do A Level Geography" he says.  "You have a geographical mind" he added.  Now the strictures of the timetable were such that I could not take Geography and French.  I expressed my preference for French and the poor man seemed most put out.  In the event I failed Geography and he changed his tune.  "I don't think it's worth your taking it again".  53 years later I am proud to be able to read a map and eschew the satnav but struggle with the French language when confronted with it in the wild.  Funny how things turn out.

 

Chris 

[Sidecar Racer]

For those with a liking of geography and a curious mind this site could keep

you entertained for a while .

 

https://geoguessr.com/

 

Maps open up in places where Google have been , could be in a City or on a road

anywhere . The idea is to find the place and pin it to the map on the right side off the

page , points being awarded for accuracy .

 

I would suggest stating with the official maps. The other ones have been produced by

people all over the world and some can be impossible to do which to me is a pointless

exercise .