Geography at Middlebury is an interdisciplinary field of study that explores virtually all aspects of life on earth.
The Geography Department at Middlebury focuses on human geography. We provide our majors with a strong foundation in geographic concepts and theory, substantive knowledge of human geography, and extensive training in geospatial methods including GIS and cartography, among other technology skills.
If you love maps and have spent hours poring over an atlas, if you’re fascinated by human interactions across space and time, both globally and in particular locations, and if you want to better understand how politics, economics, culture, and the physical environment affect human activity at different scales, then geography is your place of discovery.
Contemporary geography is a far cry from the rote learning of capitals, rivers, and mountains you might have experienced in grade school—geography analyzes real-world problems. We investigate how and why phenomena vary across space and produce particular landscapes, how the geographical setting shapes outcomes, and how local, regional, and global processes are implicated. Geography helps draw connections between human activity and the natural world, paying particular attention to different scales, and is fundamentally interdisciplinary.
Learn more about our curriculum.
Geography students are well prepared to do independent research and to work with faculty members as research assistants. Geography students can further enrich their education through summer internships with government agencies and nonprofit organizations and through study abroad.
These are just some of the many interesting ways our graduates have applied their liberal arts learning to engage the world. See more about our alumni.
