It’s a promise many university courses offer: a dream job at the end of the hard study road. But for computing students of the Bachelor of Spatial Information Systems at Charles Sturt University’s Bathurst Campus, that dream has become a reality.

The NSW Government has allocated $90 000 to fund six CSU students with $15 000 scholarships each. This also includes the guarantee of 12 months employment with the Land and Property Information (LPI) division of the Department of Information, Technology and Management, on completion of the three-year degree.

The LPI is one of a small number of regional high performance computing centres in NSW and graduates working there will be at the forefront of computing technology. A number of scholarship places have been designated for regional students.

Several places exist for students in 2001 to take up scholarships in the cutting-edge field of spatial information that involves computer-based mapping and other geographic data describing the use of land.

Head of CSU’s School of Information Technology, Professor Terry Bossomaier said this degree will give graduates the chance to be at the forefront of the latest technology.

"A revolution in computerised mapping has opened up a world of opportunities in the area of spatial information and this scholarship is a unique chance to be part of this exciting and developing industry," he said.

Spatial information and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) sound highly technical, but GIS has many real life applications:

• Developers use GIS data to plan where to place services and facilities like fast food outlets, supermarkets, police stations, and ATM machines;
• Local government use GIS extensively to map who owns land, where it is and the services it receives such as water, sewerage and garbage collections;

• GIS has wide applications in the management of natural resources, including tracking oil spills and environmental degradation;

• GIS is used extensively in agriculture to help farmers grow healthier, larger crops;
• Police use GIS to map criminal activity and manage their beats.

For inquiries on the NSW Government scholarships and the Spatial Information Systems degree at CSU contact lecturer Kate Sherren on (02) 6338 4262 or email ksherren@csu.edu.au or see the website http://clio.mit.csu.edu.au/gis