Geography and Environmental Studies
Honours Year
There are many good reasons to do Honours including:
- Your university qualification is enhanced - substantially! This is good for your employment and further education prospects. Your chances of obtaining a rewarding job are considerably enhanced.
- Honours will expand your ability to think, analyse, write cleverly and give sound advice - substantially! You'll never be the same again.
- Honours is a great credential for the years to come. It helps career changes because people know you can undertake a substantial project in a relatively short time frame. In addition, Honours gives you easy access to postgraduate courses across many faculties and into universities and colleges around the world. A great education passport, so to speak!
- Honours is tough, but it's fun! Honours students build very strong friendships and support networks. It's a challenging year. But the personal and career rewards are very high.
Honours Research
Students undertaking Honours with our staff conduct research across a variety of projects, some of which are connected to ongoing funded research projects. Recent and current projects include:
- Making 'home' in consolidated inner cities
- The role of NGOs in improving the lives of women in Fiji
- Jobs and the environment: directing and contesting the Hunter Economic Zone
- Urban justice in a development context: poverty reduction, equity and access in Vietnam
- The role of community gardens and organic farms in achieving urban sustainability
- Peace-building among the Karen people in Thailand and Burma
- Ethical consumption: the fair trade movement in Australia
- Urban Aboriginal emplacement: the role and representation of Bangarra Dance Theatre and NAISDA
- Social Impact Assessment: an analysis of the gap between theory and practice
- The ethical dimensions of global warming and climate change
- Attitudes and values in water conservation
- The efficacy of corridors in the Hunter: scale, processes and community perspectives for integrated environmental management
Students interested in undertaking Honours should contact staff in their area of research interest or the Discipline Honours Coordinator.
From time to time the Centre for Urban and Regional Studies may offer an Honours Scholarship to assist research costs for projects. In addition the Faculty and University offer a series of Support Schemes and Scholarships for which students can apply.
Admission Requirements For Honours
Bachelor of Environmental Science and Management (Honours)
Bachelor of Science (Honours)
Bachelor of Arts (Honours)
Bachelor of Social Science (Honours)
Bachelor of Development Studies (Honours)
Applicants must have successfully completed a relevant undergraduate degree with a minimum GPA of 5.0 (credit grade average) calculated either:
a) across the entire program; or
b) across a major in the proposed discipline of study, if the degree program included such a major.
No more than two years must have elapsed since completion of the undergraduate degree.
Applications must be submitted via the Hub. An online application form will be available at: www.newcastle.edu.au/study/forms/applicationdirectform.pdf
The Discipline of Geography and Environmental Studies oversees the honours program for Geography and Environmental Studies (primarily the human geography component of Geography, and the Social Systems Major of the Bachelor of Environmental Science & Management) and for Development Studies.
Students interested in honours in physical geography usually enroll in honours in Earth Science. These students should contact lecturers in the Discipline of Earth Science.
