McKinleyville High School Students Visit Geography Department

On Friday, October 12, a group of McKinleyville High School seniors, accompanied by Jim Ritter, leader of the Career Exploration Pathways Program of the Northern Humboldt Union High School District, visited Cal Poly Humboldt’s Department of Geography to explore the college experience and learn more about geography as a potential major. Greeted by Geography Chair Matthew Derrick, the students were given a tour of the department and its facilities, including the Kosmos Lab, where current majors explained the dynamic, integrative nature of geography and contemporary spatial analysis as taught at Humboldt. Then the students, along with Ritter, attended a Derrick’s Human Geography class, taking in a lecture that touched on historical-geographic developments that inform current social and political undercurrents in Afghanistan and the surrounding region. Afterward, Derrick and the guests discussed the dynamism and eclecticism that characterize today’s geography as a discipline. “I personally learned a lot about how geography is connected to so many disciplines and plays a huge role in how we understand our world,” Ritter said. “It was really cool!”

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