DES Degree Programs

All students receive a rigorous, applied science and policy education foundation comprised of a core set of courses and laboratory training in a broad range of perspectives and skills including environmental sciences, public policy, communication, planning, impact assessment, law, and environmental management. Each student also must select a tools course, such as GIS or AutoCAD.

Following the completion of the foundation core for the major, students select a concentration for specialization. Students are required to select from one of three degree options: Environmental Planning/Policy (B.A.), Environmental Science (B.S.), or Environmental Safety and Health (B.S.).  These degree options include six required classes and four upper level electives.

During the first semester of their junior year, students must complete and submit a written Program of Study to the DES faculty for approval. The Program of Study encourages students to tailor their academic studies based on their chosen concentration and personal interests. For example, students in Environmental Planning/Policy may wish to focus on international environmental policy and students in Environmental Science may be interested in water resources.

Environmental Planning/Policy

Planning is a professional occupation in which practitioners work with communities, organizations, and governments to create and achieve goals related to growth management and resource conservation. Planning is a key profession in working towards sustainability-an area that has achieving increasing focus at all levels. Planners need to know about design processes, government processes and regulation, natural resource management, social science, and they benefit from having a basic familiarity with physical science.

Computers and technology are important tools for planners, as is the ability to work with diverse groups of people under difficult or stressful conditions. In environmental policy, students study the underlying scientific, social, political, economic and ethical components of environmental problems and identify appropriate solutions.

The environmental policy component focuses on policy development, formulation, and implementation, through the in-depth examination of policy science, human and ecological risk, environmental impact analysis, environmental ethics, toxicology/industrial hygiene, and natural resource economics.

Students can also choose to focus on a particular area of interest such as pollution, natural resources, international environmental policy, water, groundwater, air, or soil. Planning and policy students graduate with highly defined and practicable skills appropriate for graduate study or employment with public agencies, professional consulting, private industry, non-governmental organizations, or environmental design fields such as landscape architecture, land-use or community planning, and urban renewal.

Environmental Science

Environmental science students may choose to focus on water resources or applied ecology. Students studying water resources focus on the flows and quality of water in various environments including streams, lakes, aquifers, and soils, and receive comprehensive training in the biology, chemistry, and ecology of soils and water bodies. The focus is on human-influenced and natural processes affecting soil quality and water quality. Courses emphasize watershed and groundwater hydrology and hydrogeology, water quality assessment and control, soil and water conservation, bioremediation and phytoremediation, and watershed management and planning. Students are often involved in faculty research programs, and present the results of their research at local and national conferences.

Applied Ecology is the study of interrelationships between organisms and their environment, within the context of seeking to understand and mitigate the impacts of human activities on those systems. Students are provided with the core science background necessary to conduct environmental field and laboratory research. Students then gain familiarity with specific ecological systems, concepts and methods through courses such as Water Quality Assessment, Forest Ecology, Wetlands Ecology, Field Methods, Limnology and Plant Ecology.

Applied ecology courses are laboratory-intensive and quantitative, a major goal being the acquisition of advanced skills in utilizing analytical tools - such as statistical software, mapping applications and geographic information systems (GIS). This combination of a strong science core with applied environmental technologies allows an Environmental Science graduate to pursue either graduate study in the sciences or immediate entry-level employment with an environmental engineering firm, government agency or non-governmental organization.

Environmental Safety and Health

ESH students prepare to work as generalists in the large fields of health and safety and environmental compliance. Graduates can handle the day-to-day problems of operations involving questions of safety and environmental compliance, and know environmental topics sufficiently to provide the judgments necessary to suggest referrals for environmental specialty experts like acoustical engineers or environmental chemists.

Students focus on applying science in the creative problem solving. Courses offer training in toxicology, industrial hygiene, risk management, fire safety, occupational health and hazardous waste. People who are successful in this profession generally have good interpersonal skills, and possess intense curiosity and the determination to find answers to questions that sometimes seem impossible.

Students may find themselves working for manufacturing companies, natural resource, petroleum and mineral companies, entertainment companies, insurance companies, health care industry, local, state or federal government, educational institutions and construction firms. Students may also take advantage of additional coursework to prepare for certification as a safety professional ( www.bscp.org ) or OSH technologist ( www.cchest.org ).