Going to college is one of the most fun and exciting experiences you’re going to have in your entire lifetime. Part of what’s the most interesting about the experience is the fact that you get to choose a major. You get to decide that the one thing you’re most interested in studying is going to be your focus for the rest of your degree.
For our generation, one of the most important topics of focus is being environmentally green. In fact, more than any other generation before us, we’re embracing green the most. Keeping our planet healthy, happy and environmentally sound is incredibly important to many of us in our every day lives. Unsurprisingly, it makes sense that making that into a job would be appealing to many of us.
Actually, you can turn your passion into a degree. The focus is called environmental science, and it’s the science of the environment and invention of solutions for our environmental problems. Unfortunately, human beings tend to wreak a lot of destruction on our planet. Fortunately, you can be a part of the fix.
An environmental science degree is almost exactly what it sounds like. It combines many different physical and biological sciences. The purpose of environmental science is to be a multidisciplinary, well-rounded scientist who can use many different tools to solve problems.
Okay, so what’s a specific example of what an environmental scientist does? That’s easy. They look at the things that make up our planet – the air, the soil and the water – and figure out what pollutants are affecting them and how to get rid of them. Environmental scientists are big on figuring out what’s wrong and prescribing a plan to fix the problem. Environmental scientists can also choose to focus on more specific types of environmental science.
Some environmental scientists choose to specialize in a specific type of environmental science. For example, environmental chemists work to determine what chemicals are safe for the environment – and how to get rid of chemicals that are unsafe for the environment. Other environmental scientists choose to work in the legal field, helping companies adhere to environmentally friendly laws or actually assisting in composing those laws. Read the rest of this entry »