Applicant Activity Hub

We've gathered a range of resources to help you get ready for the start of your Geography degree at Royal Holloway in September. These includes hints and tips about studying at University, some ideas in both Human and Physical Geography to start to think about and some links to resources that you might want to explore. We are looking forward to seeing you in September and if you have any questions before then, don’t hesitate to contact Professor Vandana Desai. See you soon!

Research in Action

At Royal Holloway, our teaching is powered by cutting‑edge research that shapes global conversations on climate change, geopolitics, geohazards, development, and more. Our students learn from researchers at the forefront of contemporary debates.

Professor Vandana Desai is a Development Geographer whose research spans informal housing, grassroots NGOs, gender and development, participatory development, BAME gig workers, ageing and widowhood, and equity, diversity and inclusion. Her expertise directly informs her teaching on modules such as Perspectives on Development and Cities and Development in the Global South. Vandana is also our Recruitment Lead, welcoming prospective students at Open Days, answering applicant queries and joining our first‑year field trip to Spain.

Professor Ian Candy is a Physical Geographer whose work focuses on earth surface processes, natural hazards, and global warming. Ian is the first lecturer our students are taught by when they join.

Find out more with our Research in Action videos below.

Hints and tips about University life

Welcome to Year 1 Geography

In the 1st term of your geography degree you'll have weekly sessions introducing you to how the physical components of the Earth work. We'll be discussing climate and climate change, glaciers and glaciation, rivers and flooding and coasts, sea level change and coastal erosion.

Resources:

PDF - Some resources to get you thinking about Physical Geography in year 1

In the 1st term you'll also have weekly sessions introducing you to how societies work on regional and global scales. We'll be dealing with the Geographic imagination, and economic geography, historical and cultural geography and urban geography.

Resources:

PDF - Thinking about Cities
PDF - Thinking about Cities handout

Other resources that you might enjoy

Research in Action Videos

Develop your research interests with our experts

In these short clips, meet some of the researchers whose work feeds directly into our lectures, labs, field classes, and student research projects. This is what it means to study Geography at Royal Holloway.

Dr Laurie Parsons brings the realities of climate change in the global economy into his teaching. Laurie is a Human Geographer whose research examines how climate change is experienced within the global economy, revealing the hidden environmental risks embedded in globalised systems of production. His work shows how everyday goods rely on processes that generate carbon emissions and contribute to global environmental crises, and how our consumption choices reflect these unequal landscapes of impact. Laurie is strongly committed to policy engagement and has led major projects on climate vulnerability and inequality in Cambodia for organisations including Transparency International, Plan International, Save the Children, CARE International, ActionAid, the IDRC and the Royal University of Phnom Penh. Across Laurie’s first- and second‑year modules, students engage directly with such policy issues and explore how climate change is shaped by the social, political and economic systems in which we live.

Professor Oli Mould is an Urban Geographer whose work explores urban activism and resistance, mutual aid practices, creative and subcultural movements, psychogeography, post‑capitalist ideologies, and social and critical theory. Oli teaches modules on ‘Cities: Economies & Societies’ and ‘Post‑Capitalist Cities’. Oli shares how his research directly shapes his teaching, including an innovative Dragon’s Den‑style assessment that encourages students to apply critical urban theory in creative, practical ways.

Dr Varyl Thorndycraft is a geomorphologist with research expertise in Late Quaternary palaeohydrology, using evidence from past landscapes to understand how water systems responded to glacial and climatic shifts. His research combines field mapping and stratigraphy with GIS analysis of digital terrain data, including LiDAR, alongside hydraulic flood modelling. Varyl’s teaching centres on two areas: remote sensing and GIS, and the global environmental challenges of the planetary crisis. As a Chartered Geographer in GIS and the department’s Teaching Excellence Lead, he designs GIS practicals that help students develop essential technical skills while exploring real‑world issues such as glacier ice loss and deforestation.

Professor Katie Willis is a Human Geographer and Head of Education and Student Experience. Katie’s research focuses on gender and migration, together with the development theories, policies and practices that influence communities worldwide. Katie shares how her research shapes her teaching across all three year groups. She introduces one of our new Year 1 modules, ‘Living Planet: Global Biodiversity and Sustainability Challenges’. This module brings together perspectives from both human and physical geography to understand the functioning of diverse global ecosystems, the impact of human activity on those ecosystems and the challenges of sustainability. These are key issues facing our planet and the global population in the 21st century.

Thinking about Climate Change

Climate Change: The FAQs

Climate Change: The FAQs is a dissemination video created by an international team of scientists to answer the most common questions asked by young students about the climate change. The video has been funded by the program "Cuenta la Ciencia" of the Fundación General del CSIC.

Royal Holloway Centre for Quaternary Research

@CQRRHUL