Mitch Carter
Undergraduate Projects
Throughout my time at Auburn, I was enrolled in many geography courses which required the completion of a project at the end of the semester. Usually, these projects were in-depth displays of what we had learned throughout the semester. Some projects were based on group work, others were individual efforts; some were more traditional projects based on the history of geographic concepts, and others were hands-on experiences using the tools that geographers in the field use today.
Below, you will find a selected list of past projects that I feel display my geographic knowledge and capabilities through written assignments completed during my time as a student.
On the left-hand side, you will find brief abstract descriptions of each of the papers, followed by a link to the full paper on the right-hand side. Enjoy, and please feel free to direct any questions to my contact page. And for more information on my thesis work from grad school, you can refer to the thesis page.
Geographic Information Systems
As an undergraduate at Auburn, I enrolled in as many GIS classes as I possibly could. I knew when I declared myself a geography major, I wanted to find work after graduation using this groundbreaking tool.
For an advanced GIS course (GEOG 5880), a five-person group effort was undertaken with the task of creating a 40-page report to present to our professor (and potentially the Auburn University Office of Sustainability) concerning the use of GIS techniques to assess potential energy-saving measures for Auburn University. My portion of the project involved assessing the economic impact of installing solar panels on top of campus building rooftops. Using techniques learned in class, rooftop space was calculated, energy-capture equations were applied, and current solar panel specs were used to estimate potential energy savings. To see my contribution to this group paper, please feel free to follow the link to the right. Or if you would rather see a condensed version, follow the link below that to see my PowerPoint presentation.
For a GIS applications course (GEOG 5970), I chose to conduct my final project based on a module we completed earlier in the semester. Using GIS tools and techniques, retail location analysis was conducted to estimate the probabilities that citizens frequent certain restaurants. This was based on Huff's Model which not only takes into account the distance that patrons must travel, but also the attractiveness of the site. To read the final paper for this course, you may follow the link to the right.
Remote Sensing
Another potential opportunity for employment using geographic techniques would be remote sensing, a tool that produces empirical evidence of geographic phenomena that often the human eye alone cannot see. For example, the use of remote sensing to identify vegetation patterns can be extremely useful, especially so in isolated or inaccessible areas. For a remote sensing course (GEOG 5820), we were tasked with conducting a land use/land cover change analysis. Because I grew up in North Alabama about 30 minutes away from Huntsville, I chose this area to examine the urbanization that has taken place over the recent decades. To view a copy of this paper, you can follow the link to the right.
Geographic Thought
No other course in the geography curriculum sounded as intimidating as a course I took the final semester of my senior year. Geographic Thought (GEOG 5800) is the course of all geography courses that begins with the inception of geographic thoughts and concepts and hammers in names and ideas of the past that have shaped what geography is today. Needless to say, the material was extremely dense. That is no complaint, however. The experience taken from this class was more than beneficial to my career as a potential geographer. For this class, we were tasked with producing a report on an influential geographer from the past or present. If you would like to read my final output regarding Friedrich Ratzel (a geographer who is often criticized for what have now been deemed radical ideas), please follow the link to the right.
The following semester (my first as a graduate student), I enrolled in a similar class which ventured through a different, more contemporary syllabus. For this seminar in geography (GEOG 6970), many more writing projects were expected as we had already been through the historical geography curriculum. One of our first assignments was to write a book review on a recently published book on geographic thought written by Tim Cresswell. If you would like to see a copy of this review, please refer to the link in the middle. To see my responses to more in-depth geography questions regarding culture wars and spatial transgression, please refer to the bottom link.
