Environmental Sciences/Studies colleges

College Search & Selection
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You want research. Ask. That’s anywhere. Both my kids had more research opportunities presented to them and were not at LACs and they know people who approached profs on their own. Maybe I’m wrong but I don’t have the sense research is limited to certain places or certain students even though many say that.

I think internships after first year are often difficult. But even top schools today - kids are finding jobs via LinkedIn and other sites - my kids both struck gold with indeed. Cornell has a wonderful career database and confirms this. Of course schools will also have connections.

I think all schools fit most of your criteria and that includes study abroad. I can’t speak to the party or preppy atmosphere of an Oregon vs Willamette but I suspect they will party hearty at most, especially the two big publics. You can look on niche for directional party grades of each school.

You mention learning living facilities. That you should check into - does a UO or UVM have ?

I think your list is a tad long but that’s ok. Hopefully your student can interact on line with student panels and/or student ambassadors if available and can make visits to campus b4 final decisions.

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I think your list is fine. You have a nice mix of selectivity.

It might be a good idea, as applications open, to see what each requires in adding to the Common App just so you have a handle on what your long-ish list will entail as an applicant. Some schools have no additional essays while others may have ones that overlap with each other.

Visiting and “breathing the air” at each may knock a few off. Also as the time gets closer, some prioritization can help. If UVM is your favorite public and it has rolling admissions, an early yes can spare you applying to a pile of other publics.

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Your D25 has just started her junior year. I think her list is just fine where it is. Your daughter’s interests might change or refine over the next year as well. If she’s on social media, have her follow the college’s feeds, read the online campus newspaper, look at the calendar for clubs she’s interested in (or the campus calendar generally to see if she likes the types of activities that are being offered). When the family is on a vacation near some of the colleges, go and visit them. Your D can also start watching online sessions or campus tours and getting a better feel for the schools.

One thing that I think can actually really sway your daughter’s preferences is to map out what a 4-year plan would look like at the colleges, taking into account distribution requirements, major requirements, etc. For instance, I found that I had very strong preferences between schools where the expectation was 4-classes/semester, 3-class/trimester, or 5+ classes/semester. I ended up eliminating a bunch of schools because I didn’t like how that 4-year plan looked. She might find the same thing. Also, she should see if there are classes that interest her to fulfill the distribution requirements, or if it’s a requirement she’s dreading.

The fact is, she gets a year to really do a deep dive on the schools to see which one(s) are the best fit and then naturally cull those that aren’t, sparing her the effort of doing multiple extra essays and sparing you the cost of application fees. And maybe in doing her deep dives she realizes some things are important to her that she hasn’t already thought about, and the list may evolve due to that, too.

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Oh I keep forgetting OP is a year early.

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Yes, a year early (and a bored mom). I am trying to plan visits though. We might go to Claremont for spring break and Maine (and possibly Vermont) over next summer.

Also waiting on practice scores from online PSAT and probably actual PSAT to decide what test to take. She took one practice ACT and scored 33, with only 30 on math because she ran out of time. She prefers taking the SAT but that might not be better score-wise.

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Go when school is in session.

I get the bored part. That’s why I live on this website. I’m even on it while in meetings :slight_smile:

It’s fun to be occupied but after visits, yes the list will change.

She’ll be fine either way - nothing wrong with a 30 on math and it can be improved.

Even without a test, you have little to worry about - except over boredom. Your student will have many choices - and you’ll have fun family vacations exploring the country.

So keep coming back and telling us more.

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You may find that Willamette doesn’t have the campus vibe she wants. The campus itself is charming, but it is plunked in between the hospital and the courthouse in Salem — very near to outdoorsy stuff, though.

And Lewis & Clark is in a lovely wooded area but kinda inconvenient to grocery stores and restaurants considering it is in the city of Portland.

But I wouldn’t take either off the list without visiting. My daughter had strong reactions to each campus we visited and it wasn’t always the reaction I expected.

For the other schools on your list, the ones I am familiar with would fit her criteria, I think.

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Another vote to do everything you can to visit while school is in session. You can research a lot of the academic stuff online, but the vibe – especially because she seems to have preferences around that – is only going to happen in person when student are there. Look at your school holidays and how they overlap with those of schools that interest you so you show up when schoolis in session. Showing up on a weekend day and attending an event works. Some schools, Dickinson iirc, do open houses.You’d be able to do the Maine schools in 2 days, for example.

It’s like tetris for someone like you – a fun puzzle!

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Not sure if this 3+2 program with Duke that results in a Masters in Environmental Management would be of any interest. Partner schools include some that have very accessible admissions including Willamette. It might even wind up cheaper than a plain 4 year undergrad degree from Duke (depending if you are full pay.)

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That will be quite the game of Tetris. lol I just looked at the Maine schools to see if we could do spring break there instead. Nope. Bowdoin and Bates have quite different schedules. We might have to visit some without students and then pick favorites to go back to. Macalester would be easy to pop up and visit (one of the reasons I like it).

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Remember that most schools do admitted student days/overnights. So if you aren’t trying to figure out where to ED, there will be a chance to visit in spring of senior year at the schools who have accepted you. (Slowing down tetris!)

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I think the list is good! Rather than cutting a school based on our CC expertise, I would recommend in this next year that you take a close look at the E.S./E.Sc. programs at these schools. Two things to note that will have a real impact on your child’s education:

(1) Some schools will have faculty who are tenured, full-time E.S. or E.Sc. faculty, in a free-standing department. These faculty are full-time focused on interdisciplinary environmental teaching and research and mentoring of ES majors.

Some schools will have faculty who are split between a traditional department (like biology, or philosophy, or economics, or political science, etc.), and a “program” in Environmental Studies. These faculty all serve two masters - their teaching is divided between ES and their traditional field (so fewer courses each year in ES, typically), and they mentor students in both ES and their traditional field.

Some schools have a mix of both - some full-time faculty in ES, and some split. Be cautious when schools do this last option but the full-time faculty in ES are listed as “Visiting” or “Lecturer” or “Instructor” - that means the full-time ES folks are not tenured, and have less institutional clout and stability, and the true power in the program is held by the split faculty.

(2) Because these programs are interdisciplinary by intent, and this is still a relatively new field, there is no global agreement on what expertise should be in an ES program or department among the faculty. Some include a philosopher. Some include a historian. Some include a political scientist. Some include a geographer. Some include an economist, or a sociologist, or a lit scholar. Almost all include a biologist. Some include a chemist. etc. Anyway - the point is, that the composition of the ES faculty at any one college or university can be highly idiosyncratic, and will make a HUGE difference in the types of courses offered, the research offered, and so on. It’s not like a history department, where you can reliably expect different world regions to be represented, as well as different subfields (women’s history, cultural history, etc.). Make sure that the faculty at a given school offer the types of expertise/courses/research opportunities that your child is interested in.

This is complicated by schools that use all split-faculty - and have a massive list of dozens of faculty. In truth, most of those faculty will not teach ES courses most years. So then you have to look at a semester course list, and figure out who, out of those dozens of people on the website, are actually teaching ES courses at the college.

Hopefully this helps a little? Feel free to DM me if you have questions about any of this. But ES/ESc programs are like the wild west of academe right now, highly variable, highly inconsistent in what they offer, and with massive differences in quality that are not apparent just by judging the overall quality of the school itself.

(Oh, and I know there’s no chance for Ohio, but my goodness, Oberlin’s ES…as good as it comes - I have no connection to the school)

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Do you think jobs for ES majors are dependent on what college you go to like for other majors? Like would it be hard to get an ES job in the PNW or New England if you went to Macalester or Pitzer?

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I really don’t. All of these colleges are highly respected, and they all have very active applied work and internship placement offices. So if your daughter can line up internships that are relevant to her field (and she’ll get a lot of support doing so), that should position her well to get a job in any region.

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I would contact each school and ask for career outcomes for each of the two majors. Their career centers and / or academic departments should have that readily available.

My hypothesis is - it’s a tough major (both) and no matter where you go, it’s going to require grit and determination to find something - but that’s ok. There certainly will be opportunities that fit those students. When I say tough, I mean financially, # of opportunities - but I’d make the same statement about many liberal art like majors. You just need that opportunity to get experience - to then gain more experience - and with grit and hustle, it’s very possible.

But studies and science will be different. Very different - in placements.

Here’s a link to Hobart student profiles - just search for enviro (there’s 7 kids).

Outcomes 2023 | Career Services | Hobart and William Smith (hws.edu)

Even though it’s not on your list, because it’s available and really easy to find, I’ll list Cornell. It doesn’t have the exact major but they have an environment and sustainability major with sub concentrations with some that look like studies.

Here is their dashboard. Looking at employers, I wonder if some double majored.

Cornell Outcomes Dashboard

Carleton, as an example, says employment is available with the following:

  • Municipal, provincial, and federal government agencies (public health, parks, natural resource management)
  • NGO’s
  • Educational institutions (high schools, colleges, universities)
  • Plant and animal industries
  • Utility companies and industries
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A lot of departments (any college, any major) will have a page like this from Macalester, which highlights careers and graduate school choices of graduated seniors. You could probably find it pretty easily for colleges that interest your daughter: Environmental Studies - Macalester College

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I think yes and no. Some Envl Studies/Science programs are closely associated with a particular ecosystem. If you go to Eckerd College, and decide to participate in research on marine environments, or coastal development and its impacts, etc., then I think that you’ll be more likely to have success in jobs that work in those systems.

So in that sense, choosing a school in a particular region might predispose you to have greater experience/skills in working in that or a similar region. IF you study environmental studies in NYC, and pay a lot of attention to the issues associated with urban environments (EJ, sprawl, transportation and climate, etc.), then again, … more likely to find work in similar places.

This also holds true for working in state departments of Natural Resources (or fish and wildlife) - where state level agencies often hire people with experience working in the particular natural systems of that state. Not exclusively, by a long shot. But more likely.

At the federal level, though, or working for national (not regional) NGOs, doesn’t matter where you went to school as much, again, except insofar as you might be specialized in a particular biome.

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I know students and alums who have studied environmental studies at a few different schools. One school handed out a list of in-field employers of their grads over the previous 15 years (they didn’t include students who choose to work a job not related to environmental studies). Of the more than 250 employers, many were what you’d expect (EPA, USFWS, national park service, Sierra Club, state DNR, environmental education, etc.), but more than half of their environmental studies grads were in the private sector.

People often dramatically underestimate how many Envl Studies students end up working for private companies - either in their sustainability/envl mgmt division, or for companies that have contracts to do environmental remediation, environmental investigation, environmental testing, environmental mitigation, etc., with federal, state, or local governments.

At least in my experience, for students willing to move, jobs are plentiful.

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Totally agree. In many majors, outcomes can be expansive.

Another suggestion for OP is to search LinkedIn by each major plus college name. I did Pitzer and came up with a host from research to fire prevention to digital type jobs.

I mean, so many are in roles they never heard of or would ever dream of from any major.

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I agree it can be tough to find good jobs that pay enough. D and several of her friends did Environmental Studies (though that was D’s double major, she’s a ballet dancer). It was quite hard to find a decently paying job in ES even for these top students (they all had a cohort scholarship), the non-profits her roommate applied to didn’t pay enough and she ended up in a job that isn’t really on point for her degree but still interesting (team manager/organizer for an Olympic sport). Another friend ended up as a paralegal for an environmental law firm. However one factor was that they had a preferred location (the Mountain West) and it might perhaps have been easier to find things elsewhere.