What are some good West Coast schools for Environmental Science?

College Search & Selection
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Ideally I’m looking for something in California (and neighboring states) and public, so something like a UC or CSU. I have decent but not perfect grades (3.7uw/4.0w), but I’m not so much interested in my chances right now as what might be good programs worth applying to. At the moment I’m considering UC Davis, Irvine, San Diego, and Oregon state.

I’m also interested in your feedback on what can be done with an Environmental Science degree. I initially wanted to pursue Civil Engineering with an Environmental focus (because of the job prospects), but now that I’m in AP Calc I’ve decided that I don’t like to pull my hair out over higher level math that engineering would require (and I’m only on the “beginner” stuff). So I was thinking Environmental Science because its not so math intensive, but from what I understand the career prospects are a little limiting. I have long considered law school and am keeping that open as an option after my undergrad, but provided that I don’t find that appealing in 5 years what might be other good career prospects be?

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The US Department of Labor sponsors Career One Stop, which is a website that can help with the career exploration process. Your high school or state may have a similar career exploration tool as well.

Career One Stop: https://www.careeronestop.org/

Are you in-state for California schools? If not, most CA public schools are extremely expensive OOS and offer little to no aid (especially the more competitive ones,) so keep that in mind. If you live on the West Coast, you may be eligible for the WUE, which is a tuition exchange program (you don’t pay more than 150% of in-state tuition,) however, this is usually not offered at state flagships (UO, UW etc.) Arizona (ASU and UA) offer automatic merit scholarships IIRC based on GPA and ACT/SAT, so that might be something to look into.

WUE: https://www.wiche.edu/tuition-savings/wue/

Hope that helps! Good luck with admissions!

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You tagged UCD and SDSU in your post. @Gumbymom had a child attend each school and her UCD student works in envi sci. Hopefully she will share her insight.

In the meantime, what is your UC GPA? You can calculate it here: https://rogerhub.com/gpa-calculator-uc/

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@lkg4answers my UC GPA is a 3.97.

@PikachuRocks15 I am in-state for CA and am looking at WUE for Oregon State and UofA or ASU. From what I understand, OSU’s process is a little more up in the air as of yet for awarding it, but that’s nice to know that the Arizona schools are automatic if I have the grades.

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University of Hawaii is also WUE https://manoa.hawaii.edu/admissions/financing/wue.html and has a School of Earth Science & Technology which might be of interest to you. https://www.soest.hawaii.edu/soestwp/

You might also look at UCSC https://esci.ucsc.edu/

CU Boulder also has a well established and highly ranked environmental science program.

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Thank you for the suggestions! University of Hawaii’s programs do look appealing, as do Colorado’s, but I’ll have to look at the price for those before considering them too much.

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No problem! :smile:

There are likely changes every year, so make sure to check with the admissions website (and WUE website if a WUE participating school AND MAJOR) for deadline, specifics etc. Cal Poly SLO is extremely pretty and amazing for life sciences: have you considered applying here?

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@rewndthemusic:

My older son graduated from UC Davis as an Environmental Science and Management major with an emphasis in Natural Resource Management. He also took 2 extra elective courses for GIS (Geospatial Information Science) which is a hot Environmental field right now but UC Davis also has an emphasis track for this specialty along with an Ecology track, Soil science track, Climate and Air Quality track.

https://desp.ucdavis.edu/students/majors/esm

He was originally interested in fisheries, so he pursued jobs in that field upon graduation. He worked for the Utah Department of Fish and Game, the Pacific State Marine Commission in Washington and finally the Department of Fish and Wildlife in California. All these jobs were Environmental Technician jobs and all but the California Department of Fish and Wildlife were permanent intermittent positions with no benefits. Experience in the field is vital especially for state run agencies were Seniority helps move you up the job ladder with better salary opportunities.

With 3 years of experience, he is now working for an Environmental Consulting firm with offices throughout California. He deals more with Environmental Policy and compliance but still gets to be involved in field work with a variety of wildlife species.

Having some GIS experience has helped with his job prospects, but starting salaries in this field are very dependent upon experience. He makes a comfortable living and is happy with his current job but eventually would like to go back to the state and his beloved fisheries.

UC Davis has several Environmental science options and my son was definitely not a “Math” guy either.

My younger son attended SDSU but as a CS major and my niece is a current Biology major there. My older son did look into their Environmental program but found SDSU’s undergrad program is very limited in their course selection however they do have a joint Master’s program with UC Davis for Ecology. UC Davis won out in the end but I would also look at UCSC as suggested in the above post and Cal Poly SLO.

https://grad.ucdavis.edu/programs/gesd

Both UC Davis and SDSU are great schools but completely opposite in vibes. UC Davis more down to earth, small town, collaborative. SDSU always has something going with an active student body and more of the city feel with activities for everyone.

I would say if you are looking for a high salary upon graduating, the Environmental Science field other than GIS or Environmental policy will disappoint. My older son loves what he does but he said it is very important to get some internships from outside companies to really get a feel for what is involved in working in the field and realize that it will take time and experience to get that well paying job.

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@Gumbymom thanks for always being so helpful! I appreciate your perspective as UCD’s Environmental Science and Management major has really caught my eye :). Personally its the water I find most appealing.

From what I understand about GIS, I can see why that would be a big help as far as job prospects are concerned. I think in my pitch to the financial support in my family I’ll have to keep that in mind (lol) in addition to the law school option. But I think it’s important to have another option ready in case I decide that law school isn’t for me.

Can you or @lkg4answers attest to the culture of Santa Cruz? It’s a very beautiful area but (at least from when my Dad was looking at colleges years ago) it had a very “eclectic” party culture. Is that still the case, or has that reputation gone away over the years?

@PikachuRocks15 I am applying to Cal Poly! It is very beautiful there and I liked the hands-on learning approach. I initially dismissed it because I was pursuing the much more competitive engineering school, but now that I think I have a better shot at the agricultural and environmental sciences school I’m really liking the idea of it again :slight_smile:

Thanks again for all of your help everyone!

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In my opinion, the “party” culture for UCSC probably still exists but not to the extent it was 20-30 years ago. To be truly honest, any school can be a “party” school if you make the effort to find the parties.

I found UCSC to be a surprisingly diverse campus and absolutely beautiful with the Redwoods. My older son was also considering Santa Cruz and Cal Poly SLO as possible options. Although he loved the beauty of the Santa Cruz campus, it was farther away from town than he preferred along with it being a bit isolated so not any easy campus to get to from our home in Southern California.

His main concern about SLO was the difficulty of changing majors (this has gotten easier) plus they did not offer as many Environmental options as UC Davis.

He ended up where he is meant to be and although he is currently working in Southern California, his company has 2 offices in Northern California where he hopes to transfer to eventually since he loves the Davis/Sacramento area.

I have another niece that graduated last year from SLO as an Environmental Soil Science major and is working as a Geologist in the area. She felt the “hands on” approach really helped get the field experience she needed to land her first job.

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Look at Western Washington University.

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UC Davis with an average UC capped weighted GPA of 4.11 puts your 3.97 UC GPA at the 25th percentile. Not a definite Match but worth applying.

UC Davis 2020 Capped weighted GPA range 25th-75th percentile:
UCD: 4.11 (3.97-4.25)

SLO and UCSC would be more of solid Match schools for Environmental Science.

UCSC 2020 Capped weighted GPA range 25th-75th percentile:
UCSC: 3.94 (3.71-4.16)

SLO’s GPA uses 9-11th grades for the a-g courses so you need to recalculate your SLO GPA. They cap the extra Honors points at 8 semesters for 10-11th grades. The College of Agriculture and Environmental Science admit GPA range for 2020 (mid 50th percentile) was 3.81 – 4.21.

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@Gumbymom I calculated my SLO GPA at a 3.86, so I agree with you that it is a match.

Thanks a million for all of your comments! Your comments have helped put the minds of hundreds if not thousands of us students at ease.

@LeastComplicated I’ll make sure to take a look :slight_smile:

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Do you like visual arts? If so, have you considered landscape architecture? Both Cal Poly campuses have BLA programs - SLO’s is a 5-year program and CPP’s is a 4-year program. Davis also has LArch and Environmental Design. Just a thought if you’d like something with a bit more pre-professional structure but still grounded in the environmental context.

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@aquapt Thanks for the suggestion! I’m definitely not an artsy person, but I don’t think that’s an idea I should dismiss so quickly. I’ll take a look :slight_smile:

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I’m late to this thread, but in case people are looking at this in the future, Berkeley’s College of Natural Resources was the very first college in the UC system. They have ~2,200 undergrads focused in 9 different environmental / ecology / forestry / etc. majors.

Berkeley’s a lottery, yes, but — fun fact — CNR is the college with the highest admit rate at UCB.

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with a weighted GPA around 4.0, most of the UCs are going to be reaches - as will be SLO. My guess, UCSC is a coin toss, UCR and UCM are likely. SDSU, Sonoma, Chico and Humboldt are all residential options, CPP, CSULB have a commuter vibe but very strong academics. CSUMB also have a very solid Enviro Sci reputation.

In addition to the WUE schools mentioned by yourself and others, NAU, UNR, So Oregon, Co State are worth a look.

Apply broadly and good luck.