Geography
Program Overview
Are you fascinated by the world around you and looking to expand your horizons? If you’re interested in geography, geospatial technologies, or meteorology, consider enrolling in our Geography program. This program can prepare you to work in a range of fields like government, education, commerce, industry, transport, and tourism. You will learn analytical and research skills that are highly valued by employers.
The Geography program can open up a wide range of possible roles, depending on the level of education you pursue, including cartographer, geographer, surveyor, hydrologist, GIS technician or technologist, meteorologist, climatologist, forest fire inspector and prevention specialist, atmospheric and space scientist, environmental scientist, geoscientist, climate change analyst, urban planner, and geography professor.
Enroll in the Geography program to explore the possibilities available to you. It’s time to make it happen.
Students at any Maricopa Community College may need to complete courses at more than one of our colleges.
Why Paradise Valley Community College?
Our knowledgeable and accomplished geography faculty have direct ties to Arizona State University’s geography faculty, interacting regularly and creating a smooth and straight-forward transfer for our students to the four-year university. PVCC instructors include a field expert who has appeared in multiple national documentaries for the History Channel and Discovery Channel and a former president of the Phoenix chapter of the American Meteorological Society. Our team is well traveled throughout the country, as well as international experiences that include studies at Beijing University; Hong Kong University; Universidad Mayor (Santiago, Chile); Queretaro, Mexico; the East West Center at the University of Hawaii; and Japan's Tokai University branch campus in Honolulu. This vast background and worldly knowledge touches our students directly and provides them with a unique and very rich learning experience.
Additionally, most of the geography classes use no-cost textbooks, limiting the amount of out-of-pocket expenses students incur on course materials. And to accommodate our students’ busy lives, PVCC has implemented four flexible learning formats for classes: in person (on hiatus due to Covid), live online, live online hybrid, and asynchronous online classes. The face-to-face geography classes provide hands-on activities such as using weather instruments outside, while the online courses simulate these activities. And, for an even more in-depth experience, our program offers students the opportunity to study in the field at the Grand Canyon.