Value of a GIS certificate for urban-focused cultural anthropology

[Chris Allen]

Greetings!

 

I'm looking at graduating in a year to a year-and-a-half with an anthropology degree. (Ok, to be fair, it's a sociology degree with an anthropology concentration. It's a small department.) I have two options in terms of the graduation date.

 

First, I could finish my major and history minor at the end of this coming year and hopefully find a grad program for the following year.

 

Second, I could extend my undergraduate career by another semester (for a total of an additional year and a half starting this coming fall) and graduate with a certificate in Geographic Information Systems on top of the major and minor.

 

My primary interest is urban-focused cultural anthropology. I'm interested in social production of space, how people relate to their cities and communities, why buildings are built and abandoned and what kind of changes trigger those processes. People have suggested that some of my interests overlap with urban planning or urban sociology. I think that having facility with GIS software would be really useful for doing any of those things, and I'm inclined to take the extra time and complete that certificate. (This is assuming I can squeeze in the classes for it. I'm working on that with one of the professors.)

 

I suppose what I'm looking for in explaining all this is to get a sense of whether:

 

A) Such a GIS certificate would significantly improve my outlook at being accepted by a grad school

Apart from that, whether it sounds like the kind of skillset that would be really beneficial to me. I'm pretty sure it is, but second opinions don't hurt.

 

Thanks!

 

Chris

Edited June 12, 2013 by Stormdog

[rising_star]

GIS probably won't help you for grad school but it will help you on the job market, especially if you want to take some time off between grad and undergrad. The use of it will really depend on how much time you spend actually using ArcGIS and learning its nuances, rather than just being given cookbook like assignments to do in ArcGIS.

[Chris Allen]

Thanks for the comment. I have talked briefly with a geography professor about replacing one of the courses for the certificate with an independent study in order to help fit them into the time-frame I'm looking at. Maybe that would offer more opportunity for that kind of more creative, less "cook-booky" kind of experience with the software. 

 

My girlfriend has made the same point you do too, about GIS being very helpful in terms of employment prospects. If I end up not managing to get into a grad program, it might well be the most practically beneficial skill I leave the program with, so maybe it's worth putting the extra time in just for that.