Students are encouraged to interact with faculty and most faculty welcome the chance with open door office policies. Ryerson's applied geography program emphasizes the application of geographic skills in a research and problem-solving framework. The goal of the program is to provide students with a unique combination of theory, analytical techniques and computer skills which will enable them to work effectively and independently in a variety of employment and graduate research settings after graduation. In the near future we are planning to introduce a new Masters of Applied Arts degree. Our teaching and research facilities include the university's Unix-based matrix backbone which serves mainframe computing requirements.
Access is available through terminals located in the department and across the campus.
In addition, most faculty have their own fully-networked computers and have commenced teaching using the internet. Course materials are made available over the internet, and using the internet to search and study is an integral part of several courses. The department maintains an extensive spatial data library in digital format. Other software used ib the School's lab includes Quattro Pro, Lotus 123, SPSS PC, dBase and various graphics packages. Student's are also encouraged in the use of internet freeware and in submitting some of their coursework as WWW projects.