Maynooth University Department of Geography

The skills learned allow our graduates to find employment in various fields, such as: education, administration, services, creative industries, and working with NGOs and local government authorities.

This is what our former students thought:

‘I chose the PGD in Geography following my graduation from Enterprise Computing in DCU. It was a big change, and a change that made me doubt myself as the start date approached, but the transition was made seamless as soon as I received first contact from course co-ordinators Patrick Bresnihan and Karen Till. Once the first semester began, and I met my lecturers, I felt far more confident in my decision to take up the PGD and found myself enveloped in the study of human and physical geography, with a diverse set of modules. Every module was composed of varying assignments such as the creation of virtual maps in Geographical Information Systems, or the month-long 'election campaign' with social media type election posts and debate performances in Elections in Geography. As the first semester went on, I received excellent detailed feedback from lecturers on each assignment which led to a major improvement of my work and led me to receive a First-class honours overall in the PGD. Overall, I am incredibly pleased with my choice to transition to Geography to pursue teaching as a career, and I have gained a lot of different skills which can carry over into my Masters in September.’ Dáire Cahill, 2021-22

‘I studied the PG-Dip in Geography at Maynooth University in order to retrain as a Secondary school teacher and take on a PME in New Zealand. The Dip in Maynooth has been explicitly set-up with students like me in mind and it absolutely fulfilled that goal. However, the course definitely went far beyond the minimum requirements for the Teaching Council. It fed the spark of an interest in Geography – both physical and human – into something I know will be a lifelong passion. What’s more, the course co-ordinators were extremely helpful in making the module choices flexible to allow me to follow my interests instead of following a highly prescriptive course outline. This willingness to work with the PG-Dip students in a flexible and engaging way was common among all the department staff. The Dip is an excellent route into adding a subject for those who’s undergraduate degree is not well tailored to transitioning into a career in education, but it can be so much more as well. It’s truly a course and department where the more you put in the more you get out. All of the staff have been exceptionally helpful and encouraging in my taking my geography studies further than I had thought I could in a PG-Dip. I absolutely could not recommend it more highly!’ Séamus Murray, 2021-22