Content: Earth Sytems Major - Careers
Career Opportunities
Although some students have a career goal from the first day they start college, most aren’t so sure. The breadth of the ESES program means that you’re not locked in a particular path early – you’ll have time to decide what career your degree leads you to. By combining a rigorous academic degree with real-world research and internship experience, ESES majors have an enormous number of career options after graduation. And the ESES major is flexible. You don’t need to guess what field of study will be your passion in advance – an ESES degree gives you the chance to find the discipline that you will excel in. Select a career that fits with your enthusiasm and energy!
The interdisciplinary background in both scientific and human aspects of environmental problems will prepare students for a variety of positions throughout the public and private sector including State and Federal Regulatory Agencies (like the EPA, NASA or USDA), public and private research institutions, environmental consulting firms, public advocacy and non-governmental organizations. The academic strength of the major also provides a platform for entry into a vast range of graduate programs, both professional (such as law, public policy, environmental and forestry) and academic (in fields as broad as climate science, hydrology, environmental sociology, and political ecology).
What kinds of jobs can you expect to get with the ESES degree? ESES, like most liberal arts and sciences degrees, prepares students for a variety of career paths, depending on their individual interests and skills. A long list of potential areas, employers, and strategies has been compiled by UTK, and current opportunities are listed at ecojobs.com (subscription required) and eco.org.
Below is a general overview of some types of career paths available to ESES students:
- Work at a local (such as Urban Planning) or state agency (such as the Department of Natural Resources)
- Monitoring environmental conditions
- Gathering and processing data
- Performing outreach tasks in education
- Work for a federal agency (like the EPA, NASA or USDA)
- Same as for state agencies
- Report to policy makers
- Foreign diplomacy through the state department
- Education
- K-12 teaching and education
- State and federal programs for environmental literacy
- Consulting
- Environmental practices
- Corporate activities and investments
- Social practices and impacts
- Advocacy
- Non-government organizations
- Environmental advocacy groups
- Congressional Lobbyist
- Computer programming, network administration, and software development