The field trip to Andalucía, Southern Spain, is an integral part of the first year undergraduate programme within the Department of Geography at RHUL.
Each year, we take our first years out into the field in Andalucía, Spain, to put their fieldwork skills and research methods into practice. The week-long trip is a core component across all degree programmes and is included in tuition fees so comes at no extra cost to students.
The fieldtrip enables students to apply their knowledge from lectures, seminars, and tutorials to a real world context and provides a unique opportunity to explore the human and physical geographies of the region. In order to achieve this, the week is broken down into three key components:
Human Geography: On the two human geography days, students will undertake research in the local area, conducting interviews, observations, and mapping exercises to explore themes including ‘sense of place’, rural identities, and authenticity.
Physical Geography: On the two physical geography days, students will use evidence from sedimentary records to reconstruct past environments, and measure geomorphological processes, such as fluvial and slope processes, to gain an insight into environmental change in Southern Spain.
Project days: The final two days give the students the opportunity to develop their skills further via small group, independent, research projects. Each project, in both physical and human geography, is supervised by a member of staff and is designed to provide first-hand experience in project design and development, data collection, data analysis, and teamwork - all culminating in a final project report and poster.
Beyond important academic skillsets, the fieldtrip provides opportunities to gain vital employability skills, and is formative in fostering the community ethos that underpins the Department.
