Here is the career story of Beth Hemens who worked for the Delcan Corporation in Ottawa, ON. . If you have a story about an interesting career path using a geography background, e-mail it to us and we'll post it.
I'm 27 years old and just at the beginning of my career as a "Planner" (or "Urban Planner") as most of us are known. I prefer, as do my colleagues, to be referred to simply as a planner because we deal with both urban and rural municipalities.
I hold a Master’s Degree in Regional Planning and Resource Development from the University of Waterloo and a Bachelor’s Degree in Urban Systems (Geography) from McGill University.
I must admit that I really disliked Geography courses in high school. In fact, I only took geography up to grade 8 and then opted not to take any more- I'd been taught that geography consisted of memorizing the names of cities and watercourses and odd food from far away lands! I took a course called "Urban Space" in CEGEP (Quebec equivalent of former OAC in Ontario) and loved it. That's when I decided to become a planner. I then took "urban" related courses (mostly because there are so few rural lands in Montreal- where I'm from originally and there are no regional governments) and the emphasis at McGill is on the urban landform. Courses in statistics, economics, history, anthropology, geology, historical geography, urban geography (didn't know there were so many fields of geography, did you?) climatology, and environmental studies gave me an overall understanding of how man and nature coexist.
To become an urban planner is to learn not to focus on any one particular aspect of the "environment", but to consider all facets and how they are interrelated, or should be interrelated to create the most efficient and pleasant living and working environment for the population. When I refer to the "environment," I'm including not only the physical landscape, but the political, social, economic, climatic and demographic attributes of a community. For example, a town in Northern Quebec will be very different physically, climatically, socially and economically than Toronto. Not only would the winter be longer and colder, but the population would have different overall levels of education and their upbringing would be different. Certainly, they would have less income than the average Torontonian. The city's buildings, social and economic facilities and transportation system, therefore would be drastically different.