The geography course prepares students to play an active part in shaping the world around them; it provides an understanding of natural environmental processes, as well as the ways in which humans have moulded and managed the form and function of different landscapes; students gain skills such as fieldwork, graphicacy, numeracy and specialist IT skills such as remote sensing and geographic information systems; the media and cultural studies course investigates the role of the media in contemporary culture; in particular, it examines media and culture in terms of production (industries and text) and consumption (audiences and consumers); the course critically examines the role that media and cultural products play in our daily lives, drawing upon historical and contemporary case studies; it enables students to understand and contextualise their own cultural experiences and media consumption; various cultural styles are investigated, such as popular culture, mass culture, material culture, subculture, cyberculture and multiculturalism.