Dear Geography students:
My colleague Dr. Ajay Bailey at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands is organizing a summer course on Population and Society. The course provides an excellent opportunity to learn more about population and immigration issues in the Netherlands and Europe. The course is similar to Population Geography (GEOG 344). If you are interested in taking the course it would be a good idea to request a syllabus and meet with your academic advisor to make sure that the course would count toward the Geography major. The course fee (approximately $500) includes housing in Groningen, lunch and dinners. You would have to pay for your own transportation to Groningen (fly into Amsterdam and take the train to Groningen).
This summer school offers a window into the world of population studies and social demography. It will showcase key population issues such as healthy ageing, migration and integration, changes in families and nutrition and development and show how leading demographers and sociologists are researching and informing policies to deal with these pressing societal issues.
The summer school will provide students the opportunity to see how real life problems are investigated with use of quantitative and qualitative research methods in The Netherlands, Europe and across the world. Emphasized is the geographical context and the stage in life in which demographic events take place, thus giving students an inter-disciplinary lens and a life-course perspective to study population issues. The summer school will bring together professionals from academia, industry and the government to show the societal relevance of population studies.
There will be lectures, hands on workshops with data and data visualisations and short talks on career planning. Students will get snapshots of methods from population forecasting to geographic information system to qualitative interviews. The social part will include an excursion, dinners and an exhibition: “How to get to 100 and enjoy it.”
Excellent students will be given a voucher for reimbursement of part of the tuition fee of the MSc. Population Studies at RUG for the 2015-16 and 2016-17 academic years.