Environmental Majors at Purdue

Bachelor of Science Degree

The Pre-Environmental Studies program exposes you to all the majors described below. You’ll take courses during your first year that apply to several environmental majors and be introduced to many environmental majors and careers. Explore your options and select the major that’s right for you.

Core A and Core B refer to the Plan of Study option this major requires. See the Plans of Study to learn more. Click on the links for more information about each major.

Core A Majors

Core B Majors

Environmental Health Sciences

This program focuses on the effects that chemicals and other agents in the environment have on human health. Graduates are assessing environmental exposures, identifying and quantifying responses to chemical exposures, providing input for policy developments that minimize exposure, and developing better methods for assessing human health risks.

Environmental Plant Studies

This program provides a strong background in plant biology and the environmental sciences. Graduates are managing, designing, and developing strategies for habitat conservation and restoration, ensuring biodiversity, assessing the effects of climate change, managing invasive species, and using plants to clean up sites.

Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences

This program focuses on ways to protect and enhance fish populations and aquatic communities. Graduates are analyzing and implementing management plans for streams, rivers, ponds, lakes, reservoir systems, and aquaculture systems.

Forestry

This program focuses on protecting and enhancing forest ecosystems and the social and economic benefits they produce. Graduates are working in the field collecting data on trees, plant, and animal species, supervising tree planting and harvest, and managing forest ecosystems from wilderness (federal and state lands) to the largest cities (urban and tree care).

Natural Resources and Environmental Science

This program focuses on understanding the fate of contaminants in the environment, environmental policy, and environmental decision-making. Specializations include Water Quality, Air Quality, Land Resources, Environmental Economics and Policy, and Environmental Pre-Law. Graduates are facilitating hazardous waste site clean up, solving water and air-quality problems, and contributing to hazardous waste management policy decisions at the local, state, and national levels.

Natural Resources Planning and Decision Making

This program focuses on landscape level planning, including watershed planning and decisionmaking based on economics, social aspects, and spatial constructs. Graduates are developing forecasts and recommending policies, regulations, and implementation procedures that create sustainable land use patterns.

Occupational Health Science

This program focuses on anticipating, identifying, evaluating, and controlling chemical, physical, biological, and radiological hazards on human health and the workplace. Graduates are assessing occupational exposure and safeguarding the workplace in industry, medical centers, and government, as well as pursuing higher education in medicine and industrial hygiene.

Wildlife

This program focuses on protecting and enhancing wildlife populations and habitats. Graduates are working across all ecosystems — from forests and fields to urban areas — collecting data on wildlife and other organisms, analyzing food webs and food availability, estimating the impacts of changing habitat conditions, and developing and implementing management plans to increase the sustainability of these communities.

Applied Meteorology

This program focuses on the environmental impacts of weather and climate on plants and animals. Graduates are forecasting weather, evaluating climate, and evaluating the impacts of the weather and climate for National Weather Service, National Environmental Satellite Data and Information Service, Environmental Research Laboratories, and Department of Defense.

Environmental and Ecological Engineering

The Ecological Engineering concentration is available within Multidisciplinary Engineering. Ecological Engineering is a new concentration that focuses on issues related to ensuring the environmental sustainability of our planet.

Ecology, Evolution and Environmental Biology

This program focuses on how organisms interact with their physical environment and other organisms from an evolutionary perspective. Graduates are providing technical services in connection with environmental impact decisions and regional planning, as well as providing environmental education at various levels as teachers, naturalists, and journalists.

Environmental Chemistry

This program focuses on multiple facets of chemistry and global chemical processes in the environment. Graduates are developing analytical tools and analytical methods for probing chemical concentrations in the environment.

Environmental Engineering

This program focuses on applying science and engineering principles to improve the environment, water, air, and land. Graduates are treating municipal water and wastewater, cleaning up contaminated sites, managing industrial and solid wastes, and measuring and managing air pollution.

Environmental Geosciences

This program focuses on geology and its application to various environmental issues including landfill management, landslide risk, and urban planning. Graduates are geologists, environmental consultants, environmental scientists, and pursuing graduate work in geological and environmental sciences.

Environmental and Natural Resources Engineering

The environmental track of this program focuses on engineering systems for optimal soil and water conservation. Graduates are designing irrigation, waterway, drainage, water, and erosion control treatment systems for government agencies and environmental consulting firms.

Environmental Soil Science

This program focuses on soils with respect to agriculture, urban, and industrial development, groundwater quality, human health, habitat preservation, pesticides, biosolids, and hazardous wastes. Graduates are working in government, environmental consulting, public health, environmental management, and federal research laboratories on a variety of environmental issues as well as furthering their education in graduate school.