In addition you will meet your tutor once a week. The second year has the same weighting, while lectures take up about 6 hours a week in the third year. A significant part of your time in the third year will be devoted to your dissertation. Outside of timetabled lectures, tutorials and practicals, the rest of the working week is allocated to reading, researching your own material, writing essays and project work. Indeed, one of the major differences between school and university is that you have much more control over your own time and do much more work by yourself.
Fieldwork is divided between the London area and abroad.
Many tutors organise one day field trips as part of the Readings in Geography course, and second year courses may also involve day trips in or around London. However, the main fieldwork takes place as part of the second year Problem Solving courses. Problem Solving in Physical Geography visits the Sierra Nevada mountains in southern Spain, where students are taught how to carry out investigations into biogeography, geomorphology and hydrology. The Problem Solving in Human Geography course travels to the United States or the Caribbean, where issues of development and urbanisation are studied. Students receive training in fieldwork methods before venturing out, as part of the Methods in Geographical Analysis and Problem Solving courses.