Sandwich Geography

I came across this article which amusingly explored the idea of the sandwich course.

This was a phrase used some years ago to describe a course which included a year in between studying for an overseas placement, or an industry placement to add a vocational element. Several of the degrees at Huddersfield Polytechnic followed this structure. 

This is an article from 1981 which takes the idea of how the phrase might be misunderstood, and is written by David Barker from the University of the West Indies in Jamaica, who thought it interesting that Lanchester Polytechnic in Coventry was offering:

"the only sandwich geography degree courses in the UK"

It wonders what the content of such a degree course might be, and what jobs graduates might be expecting to get when they finish.

There is some historical geography perhaps on the origins of the sandwich, and an exploration of what is called 'gastrogeography'. There could be a look at regional dialect variations on the phrase. My grandad would take his 'snap tin' down the mine with him. There's also the 'dagwood': the name for a multi layered sandwich. You could also consider national variations such as the Scandinavian open sandwich.

This would then move onto the social relations of production of the sandwich.

The Rank Size Rule is also brought into this, and it finishes with the hexagonal sandwiches preferred by Christaller.

Source

Barker, David. “Sandwich Geography: A Bread and Butter Course?” Area, vol. 13, no. 3, 1981, pp. 242–244. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/20001731. Accessed 5 July 2021.