Extra challenge in Geosciences
Are you looking to challenge yourself? One way to do so is to participate in the brand new GEO Challenge! This 15 EC course for 2nd and 3rd year Bachelor students is not your typical course. It’s designed for students from all GEO Bachelor programmes who want to explore, collaborate, and create: together.
The GEO Challenge can be taken as a separate optional course, but it can also be part of the full Geo honours programme, for which students will be able to enrol for the last time in the 2026–2027 academic year. For more information about the GEO Challenge or the honours programme, please look below.
Ready to step outside the classroom and into action? GEOchallenge (GEO2-5011H) is a 15-ECTS elective (periods 1 and 2) for all GEO Bachelor students (NW&I, SGPL, GSS, AW) who are looking for more depth and breadth and hands-on experience in their programmes. Work in mixed teams to tackle real regional challenges—think resilience, risk, and vulnerability—with stakeholders in places like Zeeland.
Why take this course?
- Learn how different GEO disciplines approach the same problem: human geography and spatial planning (inequalities, residents’ local knowledge, planning), earth sciences (geomorphology, hydrology, long-term change), global sustainability (integrated systems, governance), and innovation management (strategy, technology, decision-making).
- Practice translating disciplinary methods into interdisciplinary insight—exactly the skill employers expect of GEO graduates.
What will you do?
- Fieldwork at three stages (start, mid, end) to observe conditions, engage with local knowledge, and engage stakeholders.
- Individual and collaborative assignments that reflect on your own discipline and how it complements others.
- Analyse risks and vulnerabilities across time, scale, and space—assessing social, economic, and environmental dynamics.
- Co-create future regional scenarios combining guest-lecture insights, field data, and disciplinary perspectives.
- Communicate your scenarios in creative, public-facing formats (e.g., an exhibition).
Outcomes
- Practical experience in interdisciplinary teamwork and stakeholder engagement
- Ability to assess and communicate complex regional resilience challenges
- A portfolio project demonstrating applied problem-solving and public communication
Who is it for?
Second and third year Bachelor students eager to deepen and broaden their perspective, explore their strengths in collaborative fieldwork, and learn how GEO professionals integrate diverse perspectives to design resilient futures.
How to register
Before you can register, you need to write a short motivation by answering two questions:
- What do you hope to learn academically or personally in this course?
- Please describe a situation in which you cooperated with people with different backgrounds. What did you learn from it? How will you apply that in this course, where you will be working with students from other GEO programmes?
You can submit your motivation via this form. There are a maximum of 55 places available. If selection is necessary, it will be based on motivation as well as a balanced distribution of students from all Bachelor’s programmes.
If you are admitted, you will be registered for the course by Student Affairs.
Practical information
The course is taught on Tuesday afternoons over periods 1 and 2, and will include 3 short (2-3 day) field trips to Zeeland at the beginning, middle and towards the end of the course.
The faculty is in the process of concluding its previous 3-year honours programme, and had the intention of creating a new 2-year programme. However, as the University Council has recently agreed to remove the requirement to offer an honours programme as of 2027, this will now take a slightly different form.
Students who are interested in a full honours programme will follow a somewhat more individual path, consisting of:
- The GEO Challenge (15 EC)
- Two extracurricular courses at honours level (e.g. a course from one of the university-wide honours programmes)
- An honours thesis (15 EC)
In order to qualify for the honours programme, you need to study nominally (no study delay), and write a motivation. The honours coordinators will indicate how you can submit your motivation in the course of period 1 of the GEO Challenge.
If you have any questions, please send an e-mail to honours.geo@uu.nl.
As of 2027, the faculty will no longer offer an honours programme in the traditional sense, but the GEO Challenge will continue to be offered. The university-wide honours programmes will remain available.