Minor in Geographic Information Systems

The Minor in Geographic Information Systems (GIS) is a 19 credit program designed to expose students to the use of GIS within a variety of different applications.  GIS is a problem solving tool to spatially map and analyze a variety of different phenomena.  It is used in government, business and academia by social scientists, biologist, environmental scientists, historians, urban planners and educators.  Employment in the GIS sector is increasing on a yearly basis and college graduates equipped with GIS skills will be more competitive in today’s job market than those who do not possess those skills.

Students who have completed this minor will have demonstrated the ability to:  define the fundamental and advanced concepts of GIS and their real-world representation; master ESRI ArcGIS software for data capture, analysis, modeling and representation of GIS data; generate meaningful results for GIS applications that include maps, graphs, charts and applied spatial statistics as it applies to geospatial information and output; identify different GIS resources available on the internet and in the literature (e.g. specialized databases, peer-reviewed papers, remote sensing imagery, and GIS-models) and apply for and interview for entry-level positions in GIS fields.