Abstract:

The transition to the workplace is an important moment for new graduate students,. However,literature has recognized that most of the times students feel unprepared and experience tensions during this process (e.g. Ng & Feldman, 2007; Jungert, 2013; Moczko et al., 2016). These tensions are related not only to a perceived lack of skills such as teamwork skills, critical/reasoning,problem solving or hands-on knowledge but also to a lack of a proper understanding of the profession (Olson, 2014). As a consequence of that, in some cases, a negative transition is experienced, and students feel anxiety, uncertainty and inner turmoil as they attempt to navigate a new work environment for which they feel to be unprepared (Robbins & Wilner, 2001).This is especially true in the discipline of Geography given the theoretical nature of the Geography Studies. That is, new graduate geographers ‘know’ but cannot ‘do’. This lack of experiential learning and the diffused image that students have about the profession makes them more prone to experience a negative workplace transition (Holden & Hamblett, 2007). Keeping in mind to help students lightening their transitions to the workplace, in this paper, we aim to answer the following research question: how to reconcile the perception of the geographer’s PI among students and professional? Aiming to answer this question we conducted semistructured interviews with Geography Students (n=23), geographers (n=6) and other professionals (n=6). The obtained data was analysed by using inductive content analysis. After the analysis the three following categories were found as relevant for understanding the Geographer PI: Geography profession (job context, profession context and social context), Geography Studies (knowledge about the geography curriculum in the University and about students capabilities), and Geography definition (information about job satisfaction and the identification with the geographer profession).Using as a benchmark these findings we describe the two existing images of Geographer Professional Identity and suggest a series of recommendations for curriculum design based on the disagreement between these two.

Keywords:

Professional identity, transition, geography.