The interdisciplinary environmental sciences major combines a science-based core curriculum with hands-on experience needed to identify, analyze and solve environmental problems arising from human disturbance.
Majors learn from award-winning teaching scientists and benefit from resources such as the Gund Institute for Ecological Economics, the Rubenstein Ecosystem Science Laboratory, and the Proctor Maple Research Center. Field study throughout the region's ecosystems takes students to the Green Mountains, northern forests, a vast fresh-water lake and prime agricultural land. Hands-on internships and service-learning projects give students real-life experience working on environmental issues.
Students can elect to pursue the major through the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, the College of Arts and Sciences, or The Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources. All students take a common set of courses in biology, chemistry, mathematics, and geology or plant and soil science. A common set of environmental science core courses is followed by specialization in one of nine focus areas (agriculture and the environment, conservation biology and biodiversity, ecological design, environmental analysis and assessment, environmental biology, environmental chemistry, environmental geology, environmental resources, or water resources).
Email: Environmental.Sciences@uvm.edu
Department Web Site:
http://www.uvm.edu/~ensc/
List of courses in environmental sciences
Careers: Increasing environmental problems and an ever-present need for environmental solutions mean that graduates will be sought after by employers. Recent graduates have worked as a natural resource specialist for the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality, as an environmental assessor with the U.S. Department of Energy, as a conservation planner for The Nature Conservancy in Florida, as environmental technicians throughout the Northeast, and as an environmental chemist working with a team of University of Wisconsin scientists on mercury contamination in the Everglades.
Advanced study: Alumni are currently pursuing graduate degrees at Tufts, Michigan, Yale, Cornell, Syracuse and Oklahoma. One alumna finished an advanced degree in environmental chemistry at Duke, then took a job remediating hazardous waste sites, and is now working on her Ph.D. at the University of Oklahoma. Another completed his master's in fisheries biology at Cornell and now works for the National Marine Fisheries Service in Boston.
