My name is Kathleen Emerson and I am a senior at Hunter College. Currently, I am an Environmental Studies major with a concentration in Policy and Management. Previous to this major, I was studying psychology for two years at Hunter; however, after taking my first geography course, I was fascinated and enthralled by the subject and knew that I needed to make a change. I soon joined the Hunter Sustainability Project, a club dedicated to raising environmental awareness and educating Hunter’s student body about sustainability through a variety of events. There I was able to meet and talk to club members about their majors and interests, and after learning about the Geography Department’s Environmental Studies major I made the switch, which is one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. After I graduate in May, I plan to get my masters in a field related to urban and/or environmental sustainability.
Furthermore, I was fortunate to be funded by Hunter’s Geography Department to attend the American Geographical Society’s 2nd Annual Geography 2050 Symposium last November, where the theme was Exploring our Future in an Urbanized World. I was particularly excited about attending this event because I have developed strong interests in the future of our global society as it grows and expands, human environmental impacts, sustainability, globalization, urban geography, urbanization and development, community resiliency, food security, environmental justice, renewable energy, and also, GIS and data-mapping. I was attracted to AGS’s role as an intermediary organization that serves as a platform for collaboration between business, academia and government across a variety of disciplines that relate to geography, which is everywhere. Thus, I chose to intern with AGS to learn more about the ways geography affects our society, economics, infrastructure and politics, and to get involved in their collaboration efforts to enhance geographic literacy, expand geographic awareness, and engender better analysis and decision-making capabilities for policy making.
As an intern with AGS, I will be doing research and writing blog posts on topics of my interest, reaching out to innovative companies and interviewing AGS councilors to be featured on our website, creating maps using GIS applications for our Map of the Week, updating events on our calendar, and enhancing our website and social media. I am looking forward to improving my mapping, analysis, writing, and technical skills; building professional communication skills by meeting with and interviewing other geographers and companies; and learning more about the subject of geography!