A TWO-WEEK FIELD COURSE WITH DEFERRED PAPERS: A POSSIBLE SOLUTION TO THE PROBLEM OF UNDERGRADUATE FIELD WORK

Field work is an important but often neglected facet of a sound undergraduate geography training program. Literature, both geographic and nongeographic, offers very few practical suggestions or realistic approaches that can be utilized in some way by geography departments organizing undergraduate field programs. This article eliminates a hiatus in the literature for it analyzes field work, explores proven methods of undergraduate field training, and describes the importance of the selection of a study area and field camp site. It stresses the value of careful organization, and problems of topic selection and field data generation, and provides a detailed model, a proven schedule, concomitantly with a sound approach to field work. The two-week field course with deferred papers is an immediate, realistic, and inexpensive solution to the problem of undergraduate field work.