Do you want to be an Environmental Science major?

There is much that can be said about environmental science majors.  First, it is important that you distinguish your love for the environment from a love of science.  Many students have strong feelings and desires to help out our environment, but many haven't considered that an environmental science major has to do a lot of science.  If you are good at science and like science, then you should consider an environmental science major.  If you have a concern for the environment and might want to get involved in helping the environment in some other fashion than actually doing science, then you should consider an environmental studies major.  Many colleges across the country offer an environmental studies major, but some places do not offer such a degree.  If that is the case, then you should decide to concentrate on an area that you think you are strong in such as sociology, economics, or politics/government.

For the environmental science major, you need to decide which area of science to concentrate on:  biology, chemistry, geology, geography, and even physics.  Kirkwood has quite a number of courses that you could put together for an environmental science major.  Many of our courses can get you started in the right direction.  However, you need to study the requirements of an environmental science major at your potential transfer institution.  It will help greatly in making good decisions about classes to take.  It is also important to look how classes transfer so that you know which might be the best classes to take. 

Lastly, environmental science is a very broad area with many different ways to enter the discipline.  As such, you probably should spend a lot of time exploring classes and disciplines within environmental science.

For questions or comments email: john.dawson@kirkwood.edu