<p>My S is currently a freshman ChemE major. He is doing ok grade wise, but is finding that he is not enthused about the major and is looking to switch. His current idea is Environmental Science.</p>
<p>I was wondering what kind of job could one expect to get with this degree? I was thinking maybe he should major in something like Chemistry or Biochemistry and maybe minor in something like this to have more marketability. </p>
<p>He would not have to transfer schools to switch majors; however, while I know his school has a good engineering program, I'm not sure about the environmental science dept. </p>
<p>I told him to speak to people in that department and get a better idea of what it's about and we'll discuss it.</p>
<p>Does anyone have any experience with this major and what one could expect to be able to do with it? I want him to do something he enjoys, but I also want him to be able to get a decent job.</p>
<p>I worked for years in the environmental consulting world. Bottom line is that Environmental Science is a “softer” degree. Your son could work in government, industry or consulting with an ES degree. He could go into wetlands restoration and environmental issues associated with construction projects (highways, bridges, buildings) or do environmental compliance for industry. He would start at about 25K and would top out at about 65 to 80K unless he went into the business end. A better choice would be for him to change to environmental engineering. He could still take a lot of the ES courses, work in the enviornmental field, but his potential salary would be much higher. </p>
<p>Of course, you should do what you love. However, if he can manage an Enviromental Engineering degree, he will have more options.</p>
<p>Thanks, geogirl1. I had a feeling this was a ‘softer’ degree. He does really well in science/math and I’m not sure that he’s thought about the fact that this might be less science oriented and more business or administrative. </p>
<p>He likes the idea of it but I want to make sure he understands what this is really all about and what he might expect to get out of it. I work mostly with people with hard science degrees, and I think that if you have the aptitude, it gives you more options - you can go toward research or industry, or even end up in business or law.</p>
<p>This is a bit off the environmental science topic, but applied math has lots of options and with engineering, he should have a start on math. The major is applied math, but then the students get a concentration or minor in a specific area.</p>
<p>Here is [UC</a> Berkeley’s career survey by major](<a href=“https://career.berkeley.edu/Major/Major.stm]UC”>https://career.berkeley.edu/Major/Major.stm).</p>
<p>Note that environmental science, chemistry, integrative biology, and molecular and cell biology appear to have worse job and career prospects at the bachelor’s level than chemical engineering. Civil and environmental engineering is not doing so well either due to the real estate and construction crash, though that is more of a cyclical type of thing (in years prior to the real estate and construction crash, it had good job and career prospects, though that was probably inflated by the bubble).</p>
<p>I agree with geogirl1 that environmental engineering is probably a better way to go than environmental science, especially for a student strong in math and science. However, there is the risk that the cyclical downturn in civil engineering could last longer than such things usually do.</p>
<p>Thanks for the link, ucbalumnus, I will forward to S.</p>
<p>And MD Mom, I was an applied math major. 
S likes math, he had mentioned bioinformatics at one point, but he’d have to transfer schools for that.</p>
<p>If he wants to do something in bioinformatics but not transfer, could he major in applied math or statistics, selecting courses in math, statistics, computer science, and biology, modeling his course selection on a bioinformatics major at another school?</p>
<p>Applied math and/or statistics should leave plenty of elective space to construct something like that (and perhaps even add some finance and economics courses for a backup job and career option in actuarial science or quantitative finance).</p>
<p>This is just anecdotal, so take this with a grain of salt. I know of 4 people who graduated from 3 good LACs last spring with es degrees. One is waiting tables, one works at a natural food coop and two are working on a very small scale organic farm.</p>
<p>I do know of two older people (40ish years old or more) that have es degrees and work in the field. One works for a nonprofit and makes peanuts. The other works for a consulting firm–doing site evaluations, EAWs etc. I assume her compensation is better, but I really don’t know.</p>
<p>Really check the job prospects for this field. Find recent grads and talk to them. Be skeptical of claims of anyone at the college who is pitching this degree. </p>
<p>I could be wrong, but I think an environmental science degree a ticket to unemployment.</p>
<p>Ucbalumnus, his school does offer the ‘craft your own major’ option. I will mention that to him again, I had warmer and fuzzier feelings about Bioinformatics than ES. Transferring is really not an option for us financially.</p>
<p>And MNFlyer, what you are saying was what my gut reaction was, but I really know nothing about the field, so I figured I’d try to get more information. I think S likes the idea of ES, but I don’t think it’s based on much more than a general notion of doing something ‘sciency’ and altruistic.</p>