As a recent graduate from a major university and a newcomer to GIS in the Areal world@, I find that I am sorely unprepared for what the GIS industry is really like, and I am not alone. Geography students are constantly being promised that the GIS field has created high demand for trained GIS utilizers and bright futures for geographers. The demand may be there, but qualified GIS implementers are not. Universities must begin to better prepare students to succeed in GIS outside of academia, concentrating on better training in GIS, programming skills and real world experience through internships.
Throughout many of the articles published concerning the teaching of GIS in universities, a prominent discussion is one concerning training students to use GIS versus educating students on how to use GIS. One author summed up the issue well when he stated "many GIS educators have recognized the apparent conflict between the need to teach the underlying concepts behind GIS in-depth while enabling students to appreciate the various applications and providing adequate training in particular hardware/software systems"(Sui 1995). The more popular opinion held by geography educators is that universities should educate students on "conceptual and applied aspects of spatial sciences" (Walsh 1992) and not train them on the mechanics of GIS packages. I put forth the question, why are education and training so often spoken of as if they are mutually exclusive? Capable implementers of GIS should be knowledgeable concerning the concepts of spatial studies, but just as important is the need to be able to study these concepts using GIS. There are two very important reasons why students of geography should have equal technical and spatial education. First, many geographers feel that GIS has not lived up to its full potential when it comes to spatial modeling (Cromley 1993; Marble & Peuquet 1993). Who better to create a GIS to handle spatial modeling and analysis than a person trained in both spatial systems and geographic information systems? Too many times I have read in professional geography journals that geography is not known as a technical field (King 1991, Jenks 1987). GIS is a technical field, and if geographers hope to excel in the field or hope to reap the maximum benefits from GIS, then students of geography need to be trained in both the traditional geography paradigms and in technical areas such as computer hardware, computer software and computer programming.
A second reason that students of geography should be taught both traditional spatial studies and technical studies is so they may find employment after they leave school. A large number of undergraduate students do not go on to graduate school immediately after receiving their degree. I feel that educators and educational institutions have an obligation to educate students in such a way that they will be able to gain employment in their chosen field upon graduation. Most students attend universities in hopes of increasing their knowledge and getting a job when they graduate. Therefore, while education on spatial studies is a necessity in the field of geography, specialized study in GIS and the technology related to it are very important for those seeking employment in the GIS profession. Personally, I found that people I knew who were looking for jobs rarely were granted interviews without having had hands-on experience using GIS software. Once an interview was secured, rarely would anyone advance further without in addition, having work experience (internships) in which GIS packages were used.
There are plenty of examples published in geography journals of curriculums that focus on education. It seems a common fear of geography educators is that geography students are concentrating on training to use GIS and not education about why and how to use the GIS to its potential (King 1991, Kemp & Goodchild 1991, Walsh 1992). Many curriculums emphasize education in GIS and training is presented in a negative light. Throughout geographic literature, one finds statements similar to those published by Johnson (1996), "most commentators agree that proper GIS instruction at the senior college and graduate levels should emphasize education over training. The spatial analysis of which GIS is a part, requires a curricular breadth that produces informed analysts rather than simple machine operators." Johnson's assertion reiterates the general ideology that GIS training leads to the creation of non-critical thinking computer operators. However, many studies have shown that in order to get good jobs out of school, experience using GIS software is necessary (Wikle 1994, Morgan 1990, Rogerson 1992). Johnson (1996) confronts the need to address training when he states, "no matter how lofty are the principles underlying the need for education rather than training, one cannot overlook employment realities."
A frequent fear for students of geography is that theory is emphasized so much more than application use in education today. When the student has left the academic institution, there come the ever-dreaded questions, "But what can you do? You know the theory, can you give me results?" This paper was written with the understanding that the theories concerning GIS are taught to a geographer during his or her university education, but that student's ability to create tangibles from theories is lacking. While the education of GIS is important, the training should be emphasized almost as much, so that when someone asks a student of geography and GIS "What can you do?" that person can produce something. For a person to be able to continue his or her education post university, he or she must be able to get a foot in the door of the outside world. Training in GIS will allow that person to move on to a place where education can be continued.
What Should be Addressed in Training?
This section is based on pure experience, and the experiences of my colleagues who stepped into the "real world" with only a geography degree to guide us. At the university level, I obtained a solid education in geography and GIS. Also, as stated before, there are many excellent articles concerning educating students about GIS. For those two reasons, I do not address how to educate students about GIS. In this portion of the paper, I would like to discuss how to train students to be prepared for life using GIS outside of the academic world. There are three things that should be emphasized by professors when students ask how they can succeed in GIS, those are: training on GIS software, programming skills, and internships.
Training on GIS Software
As stated previously, if a person has any hope of getting a job in the GIS field, that person needs to be familiar with at least one GIS software package. Commonly used software packages such as Esri products are preferable. Assuming that the user received a good GIS education at the university, he or she should be able to adapt to most other GIS packages fairly easily as most packages are designed to do common types of analysis. Of course, the more types of packages with which one is familiar, the better one's chances of getting a job. Nevertheless, having a strong background in GIS and working well on one package is good enough to get you in the door. As far as educators go, one semester working with a good GIS package such as ArcInfo is plenty of time to get the student the training needed. There are many classes that are important to take, but it is necessary to spend at minimum one semester on this part of the training.
Programming Skills
King (1991) had an interesting point when he stated, "GIS technology is very technical in nature, but many geographers are not technically oriented." I have found that in universities, undergraduate geography classes often shy away from technology. Perhaps it is because many undergraduate geography majors are not interested in technology. However, GIS is a technical field. It is run on a computer and it is run with programs. Geography students who plan to work in the GIS field need to be working with technology. They should have at least one Introduction to Programming class. Slocum and Yoder (1996) had some excellent reasons for geography students to learn programming in some language: experience attained in one language may be applied when working with different GIS packages, a deeper understanding of general hardware capabilities is formed and resulting applications will function precisely as desired (Slocum & Yoder 1996). There are two other reasons which I have discovered to learn programming: GIS users are always building programs to automate common functions; marketability. Again, it is not necessary for a student to spend many semesters studying programming. I found that one semester of AML programming made me familiar enough with programming that I could continue to practice and learn on my own, on the job.
Internships
I cannot stress strongly enough how important internships are to undergraduate students. Going back to the ever-dreaded question, "But what can you do?" students who have had internships can show a prospective employer exactly what he or she has done. Internships allow a student to practice all of the techniques and theories that have been taught in school. In using the techniques and theories, the student often discovers that he or she has more questions about what has been learned. Internships introduce students to new areas that they might not have known existed. They allow a student to experience how different fields are using GIS and give a student another source to turn to for education. Internships help the student make business contacts in the GIS world. Most importantly, they make a student more marketable.
Conclusion
GIS is a rapidly expanding profession. It is useful to people in many disciplines and its potential is limitless. It can easily be incorporated into many geographic fields. Incorporating GIS into a particular study requires education of spatial studies and an introduction to GIS. GIS is a valuable capstone to any geography degree.
However, if educators plan to sell GIS as a standalone marketable job skill to incoming geography students, they must supply training to students as well as a theoretical education. GIS is not a panacea. Too many times I have seen students of geography turn to GIS as a study because they lack the desire to specialize in a particular field of geography. GIS is a serious science and the people who will be using it must be seriously trained as GIS scientists. Students specializing in GIS must obtain a thorough education in all aspects of computer technology. This necessarily includes training in GIS, learning computer programming and receiving job experience through internships. I recently read an editorial in GIS World entitled "GIS-Savvy Freshmen Are Here! Are We Prepared?" (Green 1998). The author discussed how much students know about GIS when they enter the university. All I could think about when I read that article was how much the students still had to learn.
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