GSP Certificates
There are two Geospatial Certificates, the basic and advanced certificates. Certificates are for non-matriculated students (i.e. have not declared a bachelor’s degree, typically these are students that already have a bachelor’s degree). This can either be with the online certificate program through the Office of Extended Education or state-side through the registrar.
Each year we have a few students that are 1-2 classes short of completing their minor. These students can switch to the certificate and complete the remaining courses through the online classes. Students switching to the certificate need to:
- Complete a Minor: Declare or Update form to remove the minor
- Submit an application to the Online Certificate Program
- May need to complete the Graduation Date Change form
GSP 101
The GSP 101 class has removed redundancy from our curriculum as it covers the concepts behind Cartography, GIS, RS, and GPS. It also provides a great way for students to see if they like geospatial and provides a solid base to take additional classes. The challenge is that most community colleges have separate classes to introduce students to Cartography, GIS, RS, and GPS. We recommend the following approach:
1) If a student has had an Intro to GIS, Intro to RS, and Intro Cart: that is equivalent to GSP 101.
2) If a student has had an Intro to GIS class, they can enter GSP 270 without taking GSP 101 (since GSP 270 does not require a background in Cartography and RS). We have had some issues with this as the students are not as well rounded as the GSP 101 students and tend to have problems with the concepts behind GIS.
3) Students need to have had 3-hour labs weekly along with the lecture for the course they took prior to transferring. If they did not, then they need to enroll in GSP 101L (1unit).
4) GSP 101/101L has 5 weeks with GPS units. Students who transfer and do not take GSP 101, should be required to enroll in the GSP 330 Mobile Mapping course for their “Choose One” if they continue with the Cal Poly Humboldt Geospatial Curriculum/Minor.
