Georgina Newton was a high achiever in high school and excelled at maths, which is why she chose to study a Bachelor of Science at the University of Tasmania, majoring in Mathematics.
When choosing electives for her degree, she picked some units from Geography and Environment, mainly because she had also studied geography during her time at Hobart College and found it interesting.
What she wasn’t expecting was that she would find that elective so fascinating that she would end up taking it on as a second major in her degree.
“I always wanted to do maths, I was set on doing that when I started my degree and geography was just something I enjoyed in college,” she said.
“But I ended up enjoying it so much at uni that I kept taking classes until I eventually decided to do a double major.
“I thought geography and mathematics was a great mix of subjects in the end. I liked the idea of mixing the two and doing something related to demographics, population and statistics.”
Now that she’s graduated with her Bachelor of Science, with majors in Mathematics and Geography and Environment, Georgina is preparing to start in a graduate position in the Federal Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water in Canberra in 2023, in a role that she said would put both of her special areas of study to use.
“I knew I wanted to find a job where I could use those particular skills together, looking at how humans interact with the world around them and the natural environment.”
A Hobart local, Georgina was originally considering a move interstate to study her degree, but she found a great reason to stay in Tasmania when she was awarded the Vice Chancellor’s National University Scholarship.
“I thought it would be nice to go somewhere new and was quite set on that. But in the end the scholarship was a great incentive to stay in Hobart and I’m really glad I did, I love living here.
“And I really liked the faculty in Hobart, the staff and students were so nice. The subjects were all really interesting, too. I studied a huge range of subjects and they all taught me things about the world in a lot of different ways.
“I also did a summer research program in Geography and Environment, which was about green space quality in the greater Hobart area, looking at biases relating to economic advantage and disadvantage. It was really interesting.”
Georgina said she was considering returning to do some postgraduate study in the future, having already been exposed to this next stage of study during her undergraduate degree.
“We joined a research group every week to talk about what we were studying and we were in a group with people who were doing their PhD and Masters degrees.
“It was fascinating to get that insight into what people do next, the sort of research I could do.”
If you’re thinking of doing a Bachelor of Science, the Geography and Environment major can be studied on campus in either Launceston or Hobart, or online.