May 30, 2024  
2023-2024 Undergraduate Catalog 
    
2023-2024 Undergraduate Catalog

Environmental Sciences and Sustainability, B.S.


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Minimum number of credits required to graduate:  124

Minimum Cumulative GPA required to graduate:  2.0

Minimum number of credits to complete the major:  60

 

School: School of Arts and Sciences

Department: Interdisciplinary

Learn more about the program

 

The Environmental Sciences and Sustainability (ESS) major is an interdisciplinary program that recognizes that the need to understand, respond to, and remediate the impacts of human activity on the natural systems of the planet is immediate and unprecedented. Current and future generations of students will be faced with the challenge to re-think, re-design and re-create how humans make use of all natural resource based systems on earth. The ESS major uses an interdisciplinary approach to focus on how scientific, cultural, economic, and political ideas shape our behavior toward the natural environment, and how the natural environment in turn affects society. The curriculum is designed to be rigorous yet flexible, requiring a set of core courses but allowing students to pursue their own interests within the broader world of environmental studies. Graduates of the program will be prepared for a variety of career paths in research, consulting, industry, education and outreach, and on the ground conservation and field work.

Major Requirements


The major requires a minimum of 13 core courses and three elective courses.

Core Courses


Students complete 13 required courses in five core areas, as outlined below.

Foundations Core


Complete the following four required courses:

Skills and Analysis Core


Complete the following three required courses:

Math and Sciences Core


Complete the following two required courses:

Humanities Core


Choose one course from the following:

Experiential Core


Complete the following three required courses. Note: ESS 4820 Senior Seminar/Sustainability Project I  and ESS 4920 Senior Seminar/Sustainability Project II  must be taken together during the same semester. 

Required Elective Courses


Choose three courses from the following. No more than two courses can be chosen from the same department (i.e., the same prefix), unless they have a Environmental Sciences and Sustainability (ESS) prefix. Courses used to fulfill core course requirements above cannot be used to also count toward the elective courses.

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