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Maynooth University Department of Geography

Qualification : POSTGRADUATE DIPLOMA IN GEOGRAPHY

Award Type and NFQ level : POSTGRADUATE DIPLOMA (9)

CAO/PAC code : MHN64;MHN65

CAO Points :

Closing Date : 31 July 2025

The PG Diploma in Geography is designed to provide students with the knowledge, skills and competence to critically analyse contemporary societal and environmental challenges from a geographical perspective.

Students will be introduced to cutting-edge research in human and physical geography for which Maynooth geographers are internationally recognised, including in the areas of climate change, urban development and migration.

Students will gain training in mixed research methods appropriate for geographically-informed research, including fieldwork, qualitative and quantitative research methods, GIS and remote sensing. Students will have the opportunity to work with civil society and government partners, learning about the ethical and practical demands of such collaborative research. Educators seeking to teach geography at secondary level will be exposed to some of the most recent research and pedagogical approaches in the field.

The programme offers current and prospective educators the possibility to earn the basic requirement of 15 credits of physical and 15 credits in human geography. For students seeking to teach geography at secondary level, it is the student’s responsibility to check with the Irish Teaching Council about what specific requirements are needed. 

It is available as both a full-time (1-year, MHN64) and part-time (2-year, MHN65) basis. For the part-time programme (MHN66) please click here.

Students should normally have earned an upper 2.2 or above (NFQ Level 8 or equivalent honours degree) in Geography (either subject degree in Geography or overall) or related disciplines. A personal statement is required so the Director can give consideration to applicants with relevant academic, work or professional experience if coming from a different background than the social sciences and/or if earned a 2.2 mark.

Applicants must have a recognised primary degree (NFQ Level 8 or equivalent honours degree) which is considered equivalent to Irish university primary degree level.

Minimum English language requirements:

Applicants for whom English is not their first language are required to demonstrate their proficiency in English in order to benefit fully from their course of study. For information about English language tests accepted and required scores, please see here. The requirements specified are applicable for both EU and international applicants.

Maynooth University's TOEFL code is 8850

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The PG Diploma in Geography is delivered through lecturers, seminars, fieldwork, practicals, projects and other forms of experiential learning (in and out of the classroom). The PG Diploma offers a wide selection of modules to choose from, reflecting the breadth of the discipline and allowing students to specialise given their interests and/or schedules. 

Students work with the course director to create a programme reflecting their particular needs. The PG Diploma is available either part-time or full-time, is flexible in delivery, innovative in emphasis, and stresses research-led experiential and field-based teaching and learning opportunities for students to develop additional employability competencies.

Degree structure: 60 credits, taken over 1 year full-time (MHN64) or 2 years part-time (MHN65).

Students must take 20 compulsory credits (15 human geography and 5 physical geography), which develop competencies in field methods and interdisciplinary approaches to societal and environmental challenges. 

Depending on the students’ interests, s/he will take an additional 40 optional credits. These are made up of MA modules (10 credits) and advanced BA modules (5 credits).

All modules are 100% continuous assessment, with a range of assessment types (academic essays, field research journals, applied research projects, mapping projects, blogs, field-based reports, individual and group presentations, other). Please see the list of possible classes go to Course Finder.

Compulsory modules:

GY607 Field School (10 credits)
GY699GA Global Environmental Change 1 (5 credits)
GY699GB Global Environmental Change 2 (5 credits)

Indicative optional MA modules:

GY608 Thinking Geographically (10 credits)
GY629 Spatial Justice: Geographies of Social & Environmental Change (10 credits)
GY619 Public Engagement (10 credits)
GY625 Understanding Digital Society (10 credits)

Indicative optional advanced BA modules:

GY699HE Approaches to Human Geography (5 credits)
GY699HF Geographies of Waste (5 credits)
GY699HG City in Film (5 credits)
GY699GI Geographical Information Systems (5 credits)
GY699PA Oceanography (5 credits)
GY699PB Global Ecosystem Pressures and Sustainability (5 credits)
GY699PD Climate Change (5 credits)

 

Course Duration: 1 year full-time, 2 years part-time

The skills learned allow our graduates to find employment in various fields, such as: education, administration, services, creative industries, and working with NGOs and local government authorities.

This is what our former students thought:

‘I chose the PGD in Geography following my graduation from Enterprise Computing in DCU. It was a big change, and a change that made me doubt myself as the start date approached, but the transition was made seamless as soon as I received first contact from course co-ordinators Patrick Bresnihan and Karen Till. Once the first semester began, and I met my lecturers, I felt far more confident in my decision to take up the PGD and found myself enveloped in the study of human and physical geography, with a diverse set of modules. Every module was composed of varying assignments such as the creation of virtual maps in Geographical Information Systems, or the month-long 'election campaign' with social media type election posts and debate performances in Elections in Geography. As the first semester went on, I received excellent detailed feedback from lecturers on each assignment which led to a major improvement of my work and led me to receive a First-class honours overall in the PGD. Overall, I am incredibly pleased with my choice to transition to Geography to pursue teaching as a career, and I have gained a lot of different skills which can carry over into my Masters in September.’ Dáire Cahill, 2021-22

 

‘I studied the PG-Dip in Geography at Maynooth University in order to retrain as a Secondary school teacher and take on a PME in New Zealand. The Dip in Maynooth has been explicitly set-up with students like me in mind and it absolutely fulfilled that goal. However, the course definitely went far beyond the minimum requirements for the Teaching Council. It fed the spark of an interest in Geography – both physical and human – into something I know will be a lifelong passion. What’s more, the course co-ordinators were extremely helpful in making the module choices flexible to allow me to follow my interests instead of following a highly prescriptive course outline. This willingness to work with the PG-Dip students in a flexible and engaging way was common among all the department staff. The Dip is an excellent route into adding a subject for those who’s undergraduate degree is not well tailored to transitioning into a career in education, but it can be so much more as well. It’s truly a course and department where the more you put in the more you get out. All of the staff have been exceptionally helpful and encouraging in my taking my geography studies further than I had thought I could in a PG-Dip. I absolutely could not recommend it more highly!’ Séamus Murray, 2021-22

Applications for postgraduate courses will open mid-October. Further information on how to apply for the course will be provided then. If you have any queries please contact [email protected]

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