(Part 3) Top products from r/geography

ESRI products are great and you can steal them online, but if you're going to get education in GIS stuff at a University or IT then you will learn that stuff there. QGIS is a free platform that is a good place to start, but honestly if you can fully explore Google Earth capabilities that might be more applicable as many companies and organizations use it to some degree. Whatever free GIS platform you choose, just go through every tool and understand how to use it, you will be good to go.

That said, just read a book and learn about geographic and cartographic principles. Maybe look into what area of GIS you are interested in, like environmental modelling or more civil stuff.

Learn about remote sensing and the capabilities of the specifications on the satellites, drones, cameras, sensors, and other equipment out there.

I have worked in GIS for over 7 years, working for hydrologists, geologists, wildlife biologists, engineers, and city planners. It is a fun field that is ever-evolving. It is important to have some advanced computer skills, especially regarding spreadsheets and databases. Understanding VBA SQL and Python are helpful, but I only know a bit of each. I do not like developing tools and writing scripts, so I don't. I use model-builder to get the most out of available tools. Get a solid geography background too, I don't mean name all the rivers in Europe, people can look that up in 5 seconds, learn the principles and understand projections and how maps are used and how surveys work... If you are going to higher Ed you will learn most this anyway.

Try making maps for something you like, like a hiking trail or your back yard, improve them, share them, see what people think. If you have a smartphone, try some GPS and GIS apps, go collect some data points, lines, or areas and try to make a map. Maybe even use a GIS or a drawing app for the map (but a desktop or laptop computer is easier to work with for that). Mobile technology is an exploding realm within GIS these days. It is important for me to be able to send non-GIS people into the field with a smartphone or tablet and ask them to collect data with many attributes. have them correct and QA the data, then upload it onto a website that will automatically update a web map.

If you search online a bit you will find more than enough material on GIS and free GIS platforms to fill your days with. You can learn lots in school, but they leave a lot out too. Having your own projects is not only fun it will give you an advantage in the job market.

Edit: I didn't edit anything except this line. I apologize for my abysmal grammar and structure.

Geomorphology is fascinating, it's a story of how earth came to be what it is today! Of course, it's important to have interesting recourses and even better if it's a teacher that's passionate about the subject. I definitely recommend this book https://www.amazon.com/New-Views-Planet-Tjeerd-Andel/dp/0521447550 plus I think I've got a pdf of earth system history somewhere. Both are great for starters (the earth system one has more drawings, btw)

One of the definitive texts in the subject was Fluvial Processes in Geomorphology by Leopold, Wolman & Miller. ($15.49! and it's available in Kindle Format!) There are newer and probably easier texts out there, but this one is fairly foundational to the field.

I might also recommend "River Meandering", Proceedings of the Conference Rivers `83, edited by Charles M. Elliot. You'll probably need to hit up the University Library for this one, and photocopy any papers you want to keep.

Which leads me to the last solution, Journal articles. They can be a little daunting at first, but if there's any chance you might want to go on in your education, you'll have to get used to reading these at some point. And eventually you might come to prefer the journal format when it comes to answering particular questions you might have.

You've already had some good suggestions, which I'd suggest following. I have a BA in geography and even after school found these interesting reads.

Cultural and Historical Geography

Eratosthenes' "Geography"

The World of Gerard Mercator: The Mapmaker Who Revolutionized Geography

Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies

Race And Culture: A World View

Technical, GIS, Cartography

How to Lie with Maps

Thinking About GIS: Geographic Information System Planning for Managers

An Introduction to Geographical Information Systems

I know most of these won't be of much use with a BS degree, but gives you a good foundation for thinking geographically. For the more science aspects; a good understanding of physics, chemistry, and to a lesser extent biology, will really give you a leg up when starting out.

In lieu of actually going to those places, I found two books which describe Kiribati and Vanuatu from a Western perspective. If you're interested in the area please read The Sex Lives Of Cannibals, and Getting Stoned With Savages. Although I prefer the latter, they're both great books and give an interesting perspective on the region.

A few months ago I attended a pretty interesting lecture by Dr. Laurence Smith of UCLA promoting his book entitled The World in 2050. He predicts that the forces of demographics, natural resources, climate change, globalization, and technology will lead a huge migration to northern rim countries in the Arctic. The issues the book addresses are probably more related to your last question about the stability of different nations in terms of resources, but I'd highly recommend reading it.

Seeing that you're interested in urban geography, Jane Jacobs' Death and Life of Great American Cities is a must. It's not always strictly about geography, but it's probably one of the best books written about cities in the 20th century, and it can be relevant in almost any urban geography course.

This is a textbook recommended by my cartography proff, there's some pretty cheap used copies on amazon

http://www.amazon.ca/gp/offer-listing/0697384950/ref=dp_olp_used?ie=UTF8&condition=used

If anyone is truly interested in this subject:

The Myth of Continents

I had to read it for a grad class a couple years ago and it covers this question in detail. It was a tough read, and I actually forget most of it. Maybe I'll look at it again sometime soon.

The Geography of Nowhere

That's one of my favorites. Cultural geography is very broad so I don't know if there are any "essential" books, other than a textbook of course.