GIS Students?

[Lady6Starlight]

Hi everyone,

In fall 2013, I'm beginning the grand pursuit of my Masters of Science in Geographic Information Science (or systems?). I've always liked maps since I was a little girl and find myself understanding data much better visually than in any other way. I got my Bachelors in Urban Studies but felt that it was lacking any sort of tangible skill set, so I'm seeking to actually acquire new abilities in my pursuit of my Masters.

Are there any other GIS students out there? What's it like? Is it hard? What schools do you go to? I'll be attending Lehman College (part of the CUNY system).

[jmu]

I'm not in the program yet but starting in the Fall I will begin a certificate (18 credits) in GIS (along with my PhD.) One thing I noticed while looking for programs is that they pretty much all use ArcGIS and are tailored around that software. This is a bit of a problem for me, as a GNU/Linux user, but be ready to get deep into it. From talking to others who are in the program or who have taken courses related to it, it seems that it is not incredibly difficult as long as you are willing to devote a lot of time and effort into understanding what you are doing rather than just following along. Some folks have told me that they find the programming portions difficult because they had to learn some Python, but, again as a GNU/Linux user, this doesn't seem like it will be that big of a deal for me.

[obviousbicycle]

I'm not in the grad school yet, but I'm applying to one soon. I am currently a senior in college, studying cartography/GIS. I am more of a cartography guy than GIS, which means I prefer the design, aesthetic part of mapping than actually doing technical, computative stuff. GIS has a high utilitarian value nowadays so I think it is a pretty good decision to deviate from urban studies to GIS as they are both complementary to each other. But GIS is computer-intensive, so I guess you have to love dealing with machines in the first place

 

PS: If you haven't used ArcGIS before, I warn you, that little devil crashes all frickin time.

[jmu]

The crashing is supposed to be better in 10.1. We'll see.

[obviousbicycle]

I'm using 10.1 now and it still crashes occasionally. But it might be my shabby laptop though.

[jmu]

FWIW we just went to 10.2 here (after litereally two weeks on 10.1) and were told that crashing should be even better as long as we kept our scaling in check.

[obviousbicycle]

Awh, that's a good news. Have you used any other spatial analysis software than Arc? My department heavily focuses on Arc and I have yet to learn other kinds of software. Not that I have mastered Arc like a pro but you know, sometimes you feel like trying something new...

[jmu]

I use QGIS/GRASS/PostGIS at home since I don't use windows. They are different and not as powerful but don't lack in functionality.

[obviousbicycle]

Awesome. I just googled those softwares and I found out that those are OSGeo softwares. I am definitely going to install these on my computer and learn how to use it on my own for additional skills.

[jmu]

FWIW I loaded a huge file today and Arc froze for a minute but no crash.

[obviousbicycle]

I think it all depends on your machine after all. If you run it on a fast PC then it's all good. But my laptop is shoddy so I should expect it to crash often.

[obviousbicycle]

I use QGIS/GRASS/PostGIS at home since I don't use windows. They are different and not as powerful but don't lack in functionality.

 

I just started using QGIS and it is AMAZING