From left to right: Eliott Wareham, Maggie Jaenicke, Charlotte Roux, Finn Odum, Dan Trudeau, Emma Heth, Lauren Weber, Selma Osman, Julia Evelyn

Our class, Qualitative Research Methods (GEOG 377), is a course designed to teach students about qualitative research methods by doing a research project themselves. We have enjoyed getting to know geography alumni and their various paths! 

Within our class, we have a wide variety of interests, passions, personalities, and backgrounds. Our academic interests range from public health to economics and computer science to urban sustainability. We found that geography allows us to explore our diverse interests with a comprehensive, nuanced perspective.

To give a sense of who we are as a class, we asked ourselves an abbreviated version of our research question: “Why geography?” See our answers below!

Elliot Wareham (he/him/his)

Major: Geography

Concentration: International Development 

Hometown: Hudson, WI

Fun fact: I am secretly a big fan of the Pokemon video games 🙂

Since I was young, I’ve always loved reading atlases and learning about new places, and geography allows me to do that in more than just a theoretical way. Geography has allowed me to explore places and processes around the world in a more skeptical and analytic way, alongside talented professors and students.

Maggie Jaenicke (she/her/hers)

Majors: Geography, Environmental Studies

Minor: Spanish

Hometown: State College, PA

As an inherently interdisciplinary field, geography has allowed me to merge interests that I never thought could be combined. It acts as a way to spatially analyze environmental issues that I’m passionate about, engage my creative mind through art and design, and think critically about structural patterns at play in the world.  The weight geography gives to place (where we’re from, spaces we value, where we live and work) also felt unique and drew me into the major. 

Charlotte Roux

Majors: Geography, Computer Science

Hometown: Watertown NY

Fun fact: I absolutely love fighting games. 

Geography provides a way of combining data and space in order to create useful and compelling information. Unlike other disciplines, the skill sets provided enable me to ask deeper questions about data and trends than I would otherwise be able to. It additionally provides a framework for looking further into the ways that the data one analyzes is actually affecting communities. To me, Geography is a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods that provide some of the most beneficial ways of analyzing our world. 

Finn Odum

Major: Geography

Minor: Media Studies

Concentration: Community and Global Health

Hometown: Milwaukee, WI

Fun fact: I love to go hiking during the summer and early fall!

I chose Geography because I believe everything–relationships, values, goals–connects back to the place you’re from and the place that you’re in. Macalester Geography has helped develop my awareness of how the physical and cultural environment can affect your health and wellbeing.

Dan “I live to cross-country ski” Trudeau (he/him)

I chose geography for its tradition of integrating multiple perspectives and the robust set of tools it offers for understanding human-environment interactions. Geography has helped me think strategically and creatively about how to engage with the grand challenges of our time, including the climate crisis and environmental justice. 

Emma Heth

Majors: Geography, Applied Math and Statistics

Hometown: Denver, CO

A career quiz my first year told me I should study geography. I didn’t believe it at first, but it turned out that geography was my destiny (at Macalester anyway)! Geography has changed how I see the world around me and how I think about big issues. I love that I can connect the environment to economics and politics and see everything as a big system. I love geography’s emphasis on civic engagement and finding solutions rather than only criticisms. Plus, I love maps!

Lauren Weber (she/her/hers)

Major: Geography

Minor: Geology

Concentration: Urban Studies

Hometown: Aloha, OR

Fun fact: I love to bake and have made three wedding cakes!

Geography provides a framework that I can use to look at my interests in both the natural and social sciences. Geography makes room for interdisciplinary work and thinking across systems, which I believe is essential to making change!

Geography has made clear to me how essential civic engagement is to academia. Some of my favorite geography classes at Macalester have involved a community partner or civic engagement component in the Twin Cities.

Selma Osman (she/her/hers)

Majors: Geography and Economics 

Concentrations: Urban Studies and International Development 

Hometown: Cairo, Egypt

Fun fact: I still have a baby tooth!

I happened on Geography unwittingly my first year by filling a space in my schedule with a course that sounded interesting. It happened to be Geography of World Urbanization with Professor Catherine Chang. I loved the course and decided to pursue an urban studies concentration. However, many urban studies courses at Mac (and the ones I was interested in) happened to be in the geography department. My advisor (Catherine) convinced me that I might as well do a geography major since I had already taken so many geography courses. In following through with that I fell in love with geography. I love how interdisciplinary and tangible it is. 

Geography has taught me to look at things as interconnected (historically, spatially, etc.) and to look at things through different scales — it is a framework through which I now view the world. My mentor in the department would be Catherine Chang, who convinced me to do the major and is overall amazing. I like to think that I have been somewhat of a mentor to younger students. If anything I am a big proponent of the major. 

Julia Evelyn (she/her/hers)

Major: Geography

Minor: Biology

Concentration: Urban Studies

Hometown: Ithaca, NY

Fun fact: One of my favorite animals is the octopus! I find them really beautiful and fascinating.

I took AP Human Geography in high school on a whim, and it was one of the first classes I had taken where I was actively excited about what I was learning. I really loved the way it pushed me to look at the world through an interdisciplinary lens. Geography isn’t just about people or the environment or money or any one thing, it’s about how all of these factors change and move and interact with each other in different places. It shows you that place matters! It’s made me realize how much of my identity is related to the places I feel connected to. When I came to Mac, I explored other majors but never found something I liked learning about as much as Geography.