Throughout the course of GEOB 270 with Dr. Sally Hermansen, I gained an applied and theoretical knowledge of Geographical Information Science. I learned how to apply my passion for spatial thinking in activities such as comparing housing affordability maps between Metro Vancouver and Montreal. Through producing my own final project on public transit usage between Calgary, Vancouver, and Montreal, I demonstrated my ability to acquire data, parse/filter that data, and conduct a diverse set of GIS analyses to visualize public transit ridership trends from 2016. In reference to planning literature, I found how transit-oriented development around long-distance transit corridors has complex interactions with other factors which affect transit use rates (including socioeconomic patterns and population density).
All in all, I developed an understanding of geographical information systems and sciences necessary to co-op GIS analyst positions and future coursework in GIS. Moreover, my experience in analyzing geographical trends from this course would be an asset to any planning or sustainability-related courses and work experiences I may undertake in the future.
Learning Significance