Our planet is facing extraordinary challenges, including climate change, environmental pollution, loss of biodiversity, and the unequal distribution of critical resources. As a global environmental studies major, you’ll gain a deep understanding of these issues and learn about ways to address them.
Why study global environmental at Clark?
- Clark’s Graduate School of Geography, which oversees the global environmental studies major, is an internationally recognized leader in the field. For more than 90 years, our faculty and alumni have pioneered subfields as diverse as human-environment/nature-society, risk hazards, critical geography, animal geographies, and feminist geography. Our program is the only one to have developed its own geographic information science (GIS) software, IDRISI-TerrSet, which is now used worldwide.
- Learn from professors whose research — often in partnership with organizations like NASA, the National Science Foundation, Oxfam America, and the Wildlife Conservation Society — informs international debates on topics such as socioeconomic development, landscape transformation, climate change, and urbanization.
- Choose courses from 18 academic disciplines for this interdisciplinary program.
- Join a vibrant community of undergraduates, graduate students, and faculty who are united by a desire to address environmental challenges.
- Benefit from a program that prepares you for entry into top-ranked graduate programs and employment opportunities where you can make a difference in the world.
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Featured Courses
Sustainable Consumption and Production
Investigate how — and if — changes in technology, institutions, and culture might lead to more environmentally sustainable development, and review case studies from the U.S., Europe, and developing countries.
Green Business Management
Can a business shrink its environmental footprint and still reduce operating costs? Learn how and, as part of a team, work with a client organization to create a customized Sustainability Action Plan (SAP).
Psychogeography and Cultural Spaces
Use the lens of psychogeography to investigate how human-modified landscapes affect our emotions and behaviors. Explore how those landscapes are shaped, and how they can be modified to bring about social change.
Course requirements for the global environmental studies major are structured so you can understand how economic, cultural, and political processes transform the earth’s environment and are, in turn, shaped by it. To complete the major, you’ll take courses distributed across four components:
At Clark you’ll get more than a great education; you’ll also be prepared for a long, productive career and life of consequence. And once you’ve completed your degree, you can join other Clark alumni who have gone on to work for great organizations and attend some of the best graduate schools in the world.
Science, Data, and Technology
Sustainability, Climate, and Global Change
If you qualify, you can apply to join Gamma Theta Upsilon, the international geography honor society, which also serves global environmental studies majors. Each year, the Graduate School of Geography, of which the global environmental studies major is a part, recognizes three seniors and one junior with paid awards: the Ellen Churchill Semple Award, the IDRISI GIS Excellence Award, the NCGE Excellence in Scholarship Award, and the Strabo Award.
Analyst
AIR Worldwide, Boston, Mass.
Project Associate
Hester Street Collaborative, New York, N.Y.
Public Programs Associate
Urban Green Council, New York, N.Y.
Project Coordinator
Energy and Resource Solutions, North Andover Mass.
Sustainability Coordinator
Wellesley College, Wellesley, Mass.
- Harvard University Graduate School of Design; MLA (landscape architecture)
- Clark University; M.S. in environmental science and policy
- Clark University; M.S. in geographic information science
The Clark Experience
The Clark Experience brings together the exceptional education you’ll receive in the classroom and so much more. Through focus and flexibility, it ensures you’ll leave Clark with the creativity, confidence, and resilience to succeed and lead a life of meaning and consequence.
Frequently Asked Questions
What can I do with a major in global environmental studies?
At Clark you’ll get more than a great education; you’ll also be prepared for a long, productive career and life of consequence. And once you’ve completed your degree, you can join other Clark alumni who have gone on to work for great organizations and attend some of the best graduate schools in the world.
Global environmental studies encourages critically informed, practical work with social, ecological, and political intent. Practice opportunities might include environmental law with a major nongovernmental organization, environmental art in a science center, climate justice campaigns, pollution research, or alternative technology design.
What skills will I learn?
- Knowledge of how the natural world and human society are connected
- Theoretical and practical skills to understand the processes of physical and social change
- The ability to apply classroom learning to solve real-world problems
What labs and facilities are available?
Special facilities available to you include the Jeanne X. Kasperson Research Library at the George Perkins Marsh Institute, the Guy H. Burnham Map and Aerial Photograph Library, Clark Labs for Cartographic Technologies and Geographic Analysis, and earth system science teaching and research laboratories in polar science, forest ecology, and terrestrial ecosystem physiology.
Are there global environmental studies academic achievement awards?
Linda Roth Memorial Activist Scholar Award
Linda Roth was a graduate of the geography Ph.D. program at Clark University and was an accomplished, award-winning forest ecology scientist and a life-long social justice and environmental activist. This award is given to an outstanding global environmental studies major who embodies the principles of scholarship and activism that Linda Roth demonstrated during her life.
Global Environmental Studies Outstanding Student Award
The Global Environmental Studies Outstanding Student Award is given to an outstanding graduating senior who is recognized for academic excellence within the global environmental studies program.
Is there an honors program for global environmental studies majors?
During your junior year, you might be accepted into the global environmental studies honors program. Joining the program means you’ll work closely with a professor to create a thesis on a topic of your choice. Examples of recent honors thesis topics are:
- Reconciliation: Changing Pressures on Sustainable Urban Agriculture in Cuba
- Characterizing the Role of the Built Environment in Determining Juvenile-Tree Survivorship in Worcester, Massachusetts
- Characterizing Mangrove Distribution and Change in Antsohihy, Madagascar
- A Multi-Scale Assessment of Urban Forest Biodiversity: Tree Replanting as a Driver of Street Tree Composition
- Risks and Reasons of Lawn Chemicals: The Role of the Individual in Lawn Management
- Honors Program Guide
Be a force for change.
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