Getting An Environmental Science Degree

I was the first person in my family – and to date the only person in my family – to get an environmental sciences degree. It was not a move without controversy. My parents are pretty progressive people – far from Republicans – but even so they have some conventional ideas of what they want their kids to do. I could have been a doctor, a lawyer, a businessman, an accountant, or any other high-paying profession. Having an environmental science degree – at least in their opinion – was not a good use of my time in college. They figured that people with environmental science degrees spent their life broke, drifting from one low-paying job to the other.

I admit that my environmental science degree does not earn me as much money as a degree in law would, but it has allowed me to live comfortably and do something that I am interested in. Even a decade ago, it was much more difficult to earn a living with environmental science degrees, but as climate change becomes more and more recognized, people with an environmental sciences backgrounds are more and more sought-after. As a matter of fact, if you go to one of the more prestigious environmental studies programs, you can work pretty much anywhere that you want. You can practically write your own job description!

Nonetheless, unless you are passionate about the environment, there is no point in getting an environmental science degree. Funding is difficult, varying greatly from year to year, and there are easier career paths. For me, it took a lot of soul-searching to decide that this was what I wanted to do. I knew that, if I wasn't passionate about it, it would make a lot more sense for me to study something more conventional. After all, everyone likes to make good money.

I actually finally made up my mind about the environmental science degree on a trip to the woods. I was camping out with some friends, getting away from classes for a few days to decompress between semesters. I was lying there by a forest brook, just watching the trees moving in the wind, when I knew what I wanted to spend my life doing. I loved that forest like I loved all forests, and I wanted to do everything that I could to protect them. The environmental science degree has helped me to really make a difference.