My life as a Geographer always and forever!

Jennifer O'Reilly (formerly Schwarz), GIS Specialist, Percheron Acquisitions, LLC. B.S. UNT Geography, 2005

I would say that I was meant to be a geographer. I did not always see this though. I started my UNT career as an Art major. After one semester I soon found out that this was not the path in life for me. So I started to brainstorm and to survey my surroundings. And finally what drew me to the Geography department was the ESSAT building. No joke!  I love nature and science. The building just fascinated me and I soon found myself in the Geography department picking out my classes for the next 4 years. I never really gravitated towards one side of Geography but I did however find my niche when I started working with ArcGIS. My first class was with Dr. Bruce Hunter in Intro to GIS. This class changed my life; I finally felt like I understood something! Maybe it was the program or maybe it was the way Bruce taught. Or maybe it was both! All in all, school finally started clicking for me. I finally started making all A’s and this also translated to my other core classes as well. Wow what a difference one class can make! I knew this was where I was meant to be and I have never looked back.

If I had to give someone a word of advice about Geography, it is that there are always jobs out there for you. I have held GIS jobs for over 6 years now. They have ranged from County to City and now to Land Surveying for an Oil and Gas company. They have all been wonderful jobs and there is so much to learn and do with Geography.