Geography

 Firstly, congratulations on choosing a Geography (or Geography related) degree and for completing your A level studies. I hope you are looking forward to learning Geography in greater depth and discovering the important role that the subject has and will continue to have in our world. There are some ideas listed below that will hopefully inspire you for your course ahead. None of these are compulsory but hopefully you will want to have a go at one or more of them over the coming weeks. 

Idea 1: Take an on-line course

Futurelearn.com has some great course which are free to access. If you type in 'Geography' in the search tab, you will get a range of different courses from globalisation to sustainability. Think about widening your search, for example searching for 'Hazards' brings up extreme geological events and bushfires or check your course structure and search for one of the topics on there.

 https://www.futurelearn.com/

There are other free on-line courses out there, such as https://www.open.edu/openlearn/free-courses/full-catalogue  scroll down under 'Nature and Environment' and take your pick!

Another site is https://www.coursera.org/. Again, typing in Geography in the search engine gives you a great range of free courses such as the one on Geopolitics

Idea 2:  Reading lists

Reading around the subject is such an important element of any degree. Hopefully, with the 'extra reading lists' that you have already been used to in Geography A level this should not seem to much of a novelty.  As a starter, I strongly recommend Prisoners of Geography by Tim Marshall.  

If you have also not already had a look at the reading lists supplied by the universities that you have applied to, I would recommend that you do. 

Magazines are another useful source  such as the Royal Geographical Society 'Geographical Magazine', 'New Scientist'  and 'The Economist'

Idea 3 : Listen to a podcast

 TED Talks Daily podcasts are a good place to start. They are short podcasts  given by the world's leading thinkers and creators. Search for 'Geography' and recent examples are 'How megacities are changing the map of the world', 'What if gentrification was about healing communities instead of displacing them' and 'Why you should be a climate activist' 

BBC The Documentary  Podcast:   https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02nq0lx/episodes/downloads have a wide range of documentaries covering all sorts of topics, but many have issues of interest to geographers.

Idea 4 : Take a virtual field trip

It might be that your pre-course field trip has had to be postponed due to the current situation. However, there are some great virtual field trips for you to access and become familiar with the area. Naturally, I looked at the Lake District(!), but there will be similar for others areas of the UK. Google Earth is obviously a good place to start and a couple of other ones to look at are:

https://vrglaciers.wp.worc.ac.uk/wordpress/helvellyn-range-virtual-field-trip/

https://vrglaciers.wp.worc.ac.uk/wordpress/keskadale-virtual-field-trip/