Geography studies the interaction between people and their environments including the ways in which the people, the environments, and the interactions all vary from place to place over the earth. Because it is concerned with the character of people and their cultures on the one hand, and with the character of the earth's surface and its resources on the other, it is both a social and a natural science. Being broad and integrative, geography provides an appropriate foundation for a liberal education. It also provides a base for employment in public or private agencies, both domestic and international, concerned with environmental management, locational analysis or planning (urban, regional, land use).
Cartography/GIS, also known more broadly as geographic information science, studies and develops digital technology and the theory behind this technology to help people work with geographic information. This broad area interfaces with work from the physical and social sciences. It is a field devoted to the acquisition, management, analysis, visualization, and representation of geospatial data. It is a relatively new discipline that incorporates geography, cartography, spatial analysis, and related fields such as geovisualization, geodesy, geocomputation, cognition, and computer science. At the present time professionals trained in geographic information science are very much in demand by federal agencies, state and local governments, and private firms.