Master in Geography, MSc

Master in Geography, MSc is one of 4 English-taught Geology programmes at Master's Degree level in the register, offered by 3 institutions. 4 of them list an annual fee for students from outside the EU, EEA and Switzerland, from EUR 5,100 to EUR 16,300; this programme lists EUR 5,100 a year. 4 are recorded as free for EU, EEA and Swiss students.

The Master's in Geography at Aalborg University looks at how people, environment and society interact. You work with climate change, sustainable development and land use, and you learn to analyse geographical problems with both qualitative and quantitative methods. The programme is taught in English and runs for two years in Aalborg, with a September start.

What you study

The programme leans towards physical geography: climate change, ecological and natural processes, hydrology and aquatic environments. Fieldwork is a core part of it. You go out and test methods for measuring how much and how fast soil absorbs water and chemicals, how deep the groundwater table is, and how quickly water is released. You follow up in the lab with soil from the field trip, measuring how fast water and chemicals move through different soil types.

You also learn groundwater modelling, using a computer programme to describe groundwater flows with numerical equations, and you build models that simulate transport processes and the breakdown of pollutants. The second semester turns to lakes and streams, freshwater ecology and ecosystems, and the coastal marine environment, including how natural and human-made pollutants affect it. You cover food chains, nutrient cycles, ecosystems and pollution, and you look at water quality for recreation and swimming, including faecal bacteria and pathogens.

How the programme is organised

Teaching is built around group project work on real-life issues tied to current societal and environmental challenges. The first semester covers soil and groundwater, ending in a project on soil and groundwater on a broader scale. The second semester covers lakes, streams and coastal marine environments.

You shape your last year yourself. You can spend the third semester at a foreign university or take an internship abroad, then write your thesis in the fourth. Or you take a traineeship at a company or public institution, often a consultative engineering company, and then write the thesis. You can also take courses and write a project, take courses and start the thesis early, or use both the third and fourth semesters for the thesis alone.

Who it suits

This suits you if physical geography is what draws you in: natural processes, water, soil and the forces that shape the Earth, alongside the political, economic, social and environmental conditions that follow from how we treat the planet. You should like being outside collecting data and then turning that data into solutions for private and public sectors. The programme aims to give you the skills to take part in and lead work on the use, protection and planning of natural resources at all organisational levels.

Admission, language and next steps

The programme is taught in English. The page points to a separate section on admission requirements and how to apply, and to the current curriculum for course descriptions per semester. From 2028, the plan is to offer the degree both as a two-year full-time programme of 120 ECTS credits and as a three-year Master's for working professionals, with a first full-time year followed by two years of part-time study alongside relevant employment. Students from the EU/EEA and Switzerland study free of charge; other students pay a fee set by the institution. If you have questions about content, workload or admission, the programme lists a student counsellor and a Study Board you can contact.

Master’s applications go straight to Aalborg University, not through optagelse.dk, and the institution sets its own deadline. Entry requirements and language tests are set by the institution, so start from the official programme page. Our guides cover tuition fees, residence permits and housing.