Geography and Planning BA

Program Overview

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This joint program from Geography and Urban Studies and Planning at the University of Sheffield combines human geography and planning to tackle environmental and social justice issues in urban development. Students develop a strong understanding of economic, social, and political geographies, along with planning policies and market processes that shape towns and cities. The program emphasizes research skills, and graduates are prepared for careers in planning, housing, real estate, and other urban professions.

Program Outline

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Degree Overview:

Combining human geography with planning, this course allows you to tackle issues of environmental and social justice within the context of urban development.

• Combine the social, cultural and political elements of human geography with the applied, practical edge of a planning education.
• Specialize in modules that interest you most, culminating in your own dissertation research project.
• Graduate with excellent career prospects, and the skills and connections to make the most of every opportunity.

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Outline:

• Contemporary urban challenges: This module will address the range of challenges contained within the Sustainable Development Goals for cities attempting to transition towards sustainable urban development.
• Cities, Places and People: The aim of this module is to provide students with an introduction to Sheffield with a particular focus on place, people, the local economy and urban change.
• Exploring Human Geographies: The module provides an introduction to key principles, relations and processes that contribute to a diverse array of social, cultural, economic and environmental aspects of human geography.
• Professional Skills Development (L1): This module seeks to deliver a range of professional and employability-related skills over the academic year, tailored to each student cohort, to introduce skills development and to tailor support towards the final stages of study.

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Optional Modules:

• Housing and Home: Issues relating to housing, homes, streets and neighbourhoods that we live in are in the news every day.
• The Making of Urban Places: This module will introduce you to cities and urbanisation, from the very first settlements to contemporary metropolises, using examples throughout history from across the world.
• Climate Action: Humans are altering the climate, with significant impacts on livelihoods, wellbeing, equality, and the environment across the globe.
• Urban Economics: This module provides an introduction to economic concepts and theories and to the way in which they are applied to the analysis of property markets and policy challenges.
• Cities, space and urban design: The module will explore the fundamentals of urban design and its role in the mediation, analysis and design of space.
• Living with Environmental Change: This module will introduce students to a wide range of critical environmental issues facing the world today from physical science and social science perspectives.
• Why Geography Matters: Geography helps us plan for the future by investigating social and physical processes as they interconnect from the past through to the present.

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Year 2:

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Core Modules:

• Urban Analytics: This module will serve as an introduction to quantitative and spatial analytical methods, with a specific focus on understanding, interpreting and presenting secondary data in urban contexts.
• Researching the City: Applied Skills for Practice: Level Two study of urban design, urban theory and the distinctiveness of place is enhanced by learning about how to conduct research in urban contexts.
• Professional Skills Development (L2): This module will provide a space for you to consider, plan and reflect on your personal and professional development as you complete your degree programme.

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Optional Modules:

• Sustainable Development and Global Justice: Development in the Global South is a major issue of international concern in the 21st century.
• Culture, Space and Difference: This research-led module introduces students to the cutting edge of Social and Cultural Geography and dovetails with the Sheffield Geography Department’s Culture, Space and Difference research group.
• Territory, Power and Policy: The module introduces you to contemporary debates within political geography.
• Who Gets What?
• Social Justice and the Environment: Environmental issues continue to be a key area of contemporary public concern and current political debate.
• Urban Culture and Conflict: The Making of Modern Cities: Cities are sites of social conflict and cultural production.
• Urban Design and Place-Making: The overall aim of the module is to enhance students' understanding and critical appreciation of the contemporary context of urban design thought, policy and practice - focusing particularly on the role of place-making in cities.
• Urban Theory: This module aims to develop student's imaginative engagement with the nature of urban life and human settlement.
• Cities, Violence and Security: Introduces students to key examples of violence, conflict and insecurity in urban contexts around the world.
• City makers: Drawing on cities from different contexts, this module provides an introduction to the administrative, economic and socio-political contexts in which city making takes place, as well as the role that different groups and interests play in mediating and affecting urban transformation.
• Planning, Viability and Development: This module explores the real estate development process and the various influences on the viability of successful development projects.
• Dynamics of Social Change and Policy: This unit adopts a 'sociological perspective on social policy' to provide a macro perspective on contemporary social and economic transformations in the UK and globally, with a particular emphasis on the challenges posed for social policy theory and practice, as well as the potential to imagine alternative social policy scenarios.
• Population and Environment in China: This module examines the interdependent relationship between population and environment in China.

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Year 3:

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Core Modules:

• Plan making and development: This is an applied project module that provides a thorough grounding in the processes of strategic planning, drawing together and integrating skills developed through Levels 1-3.
• Professional Skills Development (L3): This module will provide a space for you to consider, plan and reflect on your personal and professional development as you complete your degree programme.
• Dissertation: This module allows students to develop and manage an individual research project.

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Optional Modules:

• Democracy and Citizenship: Dilemmas and Tensions: This module explores how a geographical approach helps us to analyse issues such as controversial election results, divisive immigration policies, and contentious social activism.
• Decolonising Geographies: This module examines Indigenous geographies through Indigenous storytelling and film as a way to understand the need to decolonise geography.
• Challenging Development: The aim of this module is to critically examine the development process within a global context, drawing on examples from developed and developing nations, to understand the local global nexus.
• Creative Geographies: Media, Imaginaries and Politics: Place, in all its forms, has long inspired creativity, while the works that result are themselves inherently spatial.
• Future Cities: This module will introduce students to conceptual and policy debates that frame possible urban futures.
• Sustainable Cities: This module aims to help students understand current agendas and approaches to environmental and infrastructure planning.
• Planning Law: This course will provide a thorough introduction to the rationale, purposes and values that underpin the legal control of development, including the legal framework for the English planning system and the procedures for the control of development in the English planning system.

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Assessment:

• You will be assessed through a combination of coursework and exams.
• Our teaching staff are world-leading researchers and experts in their field.
• We typically offer a core field class in your second year.

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Careers:

• Most of our graduates go on to work in planning or a related career in the built environment professions, including housing, transport planning, real estate, development control, forward planning, regeneration, urban design, heritage and conservation.
• Recent graduates have gone on to work for public and private sector organisations such as AECOM, Arup, CBRE, Deloitte, Harrow London Borough Council, Sheffield City Council, Leicester City Council, North Somerset Council, and the Peak District National Park Authority.
• More than half of our graduate planners take up posts with planning consultancies and several are employed by major global built environment firms.

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Other:

• Our department is the UK’s top accredited planning school for research and impact, with more than 95% of our research considered world leading or internationally excellent, according to the 2021 Research Excellence Framework.
• We have an intellectual reputation for theoretical strength, especially in the fields of urban inequalities and social justice.
• We work with national governments, international bodies such as the UN, research councils, private business, the voluntary sector, and local communities to shape policy and inspire change in urban environments.
• The School of Geography and Planning at the University of Sheffield is a world leader in teaching and research.
• We are experts in the fields of social justice and environmental change.
• Our innovative research and practice-based learning will equip you with distinct, relevant professional skills.
• The School of Geography and Planning is housed in an award-winning, purpose-built building on the edge of the beautiful Weston Park, close to the Students' Union and central libraries and lecture theatres.
• We're ranked within the top 50 universities in the world for geography, according to the QS Rankings 2023 and top 10 in the UK for geography by the Guardian University Guide 2024.
• As a student at Sheffield, you'll develop the knowledge and skills to build a successful career in planning and related urban and environmental professions.
• You'll be taught by world-leading academics whose cutting-edge research feeds directly into the seminar room.
• You'll be at the heart of a vibrant academic community and will benefit from an excellent staff-student ratio, resulting in a genuinely friendly and inclusive academic environment.
• We believe this will help with your wellbeing and encourage your intellectual curiosity.
• You'll have the opportunity to develop the Sheffield Graduate Attributes and Geography Graduate Attributes.
• Other geography graduates have used these assets to secure employment in teaching, law, patenting, finance and banking.
• You may have the opportunity to add an optional placement year as part of your course, converting the three year course to a four-year Degree with Placement Year.
• A placement year will help you to:
• gain an insight into possible careers
• develop a range of transferable skills
• build a professional network
• add valuable work experience to your CV
• gain experience of applying for jobs and interview practice
• apply elements of academic learning in the workplace
• Spending time abroad during your degree is a great way to explore different cultures, gain a new perspective and experience a life-changing opportunity that you will never forget.
• You can apply to extend this course with a year abroad, usually between the second and third year.
• We have over 250 University partners worldwide.
• Popular destinations include Europe, the USA, Canada, Australia, Singapore and Hong Kong.
• The awarding body for this course is the University of Sheffield.
• Any supervisors and research areas listed are indicative and may change before the start of the course.
• Individual modules are occasionally updated or withdrawn.
• This is in response to discoveries through our world-leading research; funding changes; professional accreditation requirements; student or employer feedback; outcomes of reviews; and variations in staff or student numbers.
• In the event of any change we'll consult and inform students in good time and take reasonable steps to minimise disruption.

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| Home Students | Overseas Students| |:---|:---| | £9,250 | £25,540 |