<p>Hello, I'm currently a freshman biology major at Elmira College, and I've been questioning what specific programs I want to study. I want to do some sort of career related to the environment, either sustainability/renewable energy research/toxicology or polution control, OR Environmental Law. I guess I want to know some opinions on the quality and impact of these jobs and how best to prepare for them. I'm currently a Biology major, but I want to add another major in something that will help my career aspirations. One option is my school's environmental studies major, which has a lot of overlap with biology, but my Adviser says its a bad idea because our school's programs for that field are not very good. Our standard biology classes are great, but our environmental studies science lab classes (there's really only 1 class) are taught by the terrible bio teacher at my school, and are therefore not good classes. Our ecology classes in our bio departments like plant ecology are good, but I'm not sure what to do. You guys can google our environmental studies major to check it out, but its really not designed that well. So what other major should I add? Environmental Studies? Or something to diversify me, such as History, American Studies, or Political Science/Economics?</p>
<p>Look into public health or economics</p>
<p>Statistics. Trust me, it’s the backbone of science.</p>
<p>If you want renewable energy, go into engineering instead. It can include materials engineering, chemical or biochemical engineering, and other various engineering programs. Much better than a biology program mixed with something else.</p>
<p>I would try an engineering program except I really do not want to transfer out of Elmira (a tiny liberal arts school). Our only engineering program is 3+2 yr program with Clarkson for chemical engineering, but I’d have to do it as a 4+6 yr program which doesn’t appeal to me. If I try for public health it will be in grad school. We just have stats classes one of which I will take, not a stats major. I just want to know what major at my school I should do with bio?</p>
<p>Well that sucks that you don’t have public health. An environmental studies degree wouldn’t be a bad thing to have, but it’s really just going to focus on the social aspect of things. I’m not sure it it’s possible at your school, but see if there’s a way to combine the environmental studies and economics. Or choose economic classes with an environmental undertone. For example, my I’m about to take a class titled: Green Markets.</p>
<p>Yeah ssynny, I think I’m just going to double major in Biology and Economics. We offer an Environmental Economics class that I’ll take for it. I figured Biology would be stronger than Environmental studies since it will have me take more legitimate classes, like Organic Chemistry and Plant Physiology rather than the slightly dubious classes for Environmental Studies. The only overlap between Bio and Econ is just Stats and Calc, but I can definitly fit in the classes for both of them and still graduate on time.</p>