What does sustainability mean to you?
You’ve heard the three R’s at some point in your life: reduce, reuse, recycle. They’re simple enough that everyone can do them, and they’re important habits to build if you want to live sustainably.
On their own, though, the three R’s aren’t enough to build a green future. To mitigate and deal with our changing climate, the field of sustainability thinks bigger. Sustainability professionals work across industries to help organizations minimize their environmental footprint, support community wellness, and meet long-term, prosperity goals.
The need for these professionals is growing, and California is a hotspot for the field. In this state alone from 2023 to 2024, there were nearly 96,000 unique job postings for environmental occupations, according to labor markets analytics company Lightcast. The company expects the field to keep growing nationally, especially in California.
There are many types of sustainability careers: compliance officers, project management specialists, environmental scientists or engineers, operations specialists and so on. It’s a lot to wrap your head around, but it also means there are plenty of ways you can turn your sustainability interests into a career.
One option is a sustainability degree.
“It’s an emerging interdisciplinary field that brings together expertise from the sciences, the social sciences, business and engineering to provide students with the skills and knowledge they need to solve some of the world’s most pressing problems,” says geological and environmental sciences professor Laura Rademacher.
What do you learn in a sustainability degree program?
An education in sustainability sits at the intersection of fields including ecology, public policy, business, design and others. That means most programs give you flexibility to explore and grow your passion, tailoring your degree to fit your interests and career goals.
Universities do not always offer a sustainability degree program. You should also keep in mind, among universities that do, what you learn often varies. Some universities, including Pacific, offer flexible degrees with several concentrations while others are more narrowly specialized.
“We imagine students having really broad interests,” Rademacher says. “They may come from a business mindset and want to do one thing, or they may come from a science mindset and have goals in different areas. It really allows for individual tailoring of that experience.”
When you research sustainability programs, look at each degree program’s webpage and course catalog. Compare the universities you’re interested in and see which ones specialize in the topics that inspire you.
Pay attention to whether a university offers this degree as a Bachelor of Arts or a Bachelor of Science. That tells you a little bit about your experience as a student: A Bachelor of Arts tends to require study of a broad range of topics while a Bachelor of Science is more technical and requires more science classes.
At Pacific, sustainability is a Bachelor of Science degree. Rademacher says that shouldn’t dissuade you if science isn’t your strongest subject.
“We do have an analytical and technical focus in it,” she says. “But there are definitely areas from other disciplines. For example, our storytelling requirement. That’s how students can learn to tell narratives about sustainability and communities. So, there are areas that are a little more creative. There are opportunities for everyone to find something that sparks their interest.”
How Pacific approaches sustainability
Pacific’s sustainability degree is built around you. All students in this major start with the same basic courses, then branch out as they choose one of eight concentrations. One of the benefits of studying at Pacific is that you don’t make that decision alone.
“There’s a first-year seminar to introduce students to the major and to sustainability more broadly, but also to the faculty they’ll be working with. There’s also the methods course,” Rademacher says. ”It’s exciting to me because we’re bringing expertise from many disciplines together to produce that methods class that can help with data analysis, qualitative data collection, interviews and the visualization of different aspects of sustainability.”
Pacific’s concentrations
- Communicating for change
- Healthy futures
- Sustainable communities
- Sustainable design
- Sustainable infrastructure
- Sustainable planet
- Sustainability in business
- Design your own
Each concentration is built around one of Pacific’s strengths as a university. Visit Pacific’s sustainability degree page in the general catalog to learn more about each subject area.
“This is a point of flexibility for students. We didn’t want people to feel like there are just a few ways they could think about sustainability. And I’m sure students will come along with brilliant ideas for how they could do that, and match their own experience and expertise,” Rademacher says.
Plus, Rademacher says, this topic is vital for California’s Central Valley. That translates to a lot of community and industry interest and engagement in what you’re studying.
“The thing I think people often miss about Stockton and the Central Valley is that the level of community engagement is really high. There are lots of people who are active and pursuing various environmental and social justice aspects. So, there are a lot of partners willing and available to work with our students,” she says.
Undergraduate courses on sustainability
The classes you take for a sustainability degree depend on the university’s focus. When you compare degree programs, look at the degree catalog. This lists the classes you take and gives you the university’s goal for your education, usually under a section titled “Learning Outcomes.”
Pacific’s program requires a lot of hands-on learning, which means you get real-world experience. Regardless of the concentration you’re in, you’ll take a class that focuses on how to find internships and research opportunities. That all culminates in a pair of capstone classes where you take everything you’ve learned and make something real. It’s a great way to learn how to develop and execute more complex projects.
“Our goal is to have community partners make requests. Then, the class or groups in the class can address those requests over the course of the year. And so, they’ll have lots of chances for really digging in on some of those real-world skills. When you graduate, you can hit the ground running,” Rademacher says.
Pathways to graduate programs
A sustainability degree is an excellent first step into graduate school. There are master’s degrees in sustainability, but that’s just one pathway.
“It’s well suited to a Master in Public Policy and Master of Public Health, but also to law and disaster management,” Rademacher says.
Key skills for sustainability careers
You gain a lot of tailored knowledge when you earn a sustainability degree, but Rademacher highlights a few high-level skills you will acquire that will be useful anywhere you go.
- Systems thinking: The ability to develop a sophisticated understanding of something as a “system” or a web of individual pieces that create a whole. This is essential for sustainability work, because you may have to analyze how an organization operates and understand how to change small, individual features to affect the broader ecosystem.
- Change management: When you use systems thinking to understand an organization, the next step is to find out how small changes can have big effects. This is essential for enacting relevant and positive policies in your workplace.
- Data analysis: Both quantitative and qualitative data analysis are essential for the modern workplace. This skill allows you to look at large amounts of information and find the stories hidden there.
- Storytelling: Part of your job in sustainability is explaining why an issue is important and needs to be acted on.
- Project management: Sustainability work is often complex and long. You’ll learn how to oversee a project from beginning to end, a vital skill in any role.
Career paths with a sustainability degree
Unlike degrees like civil engineering, which have a clear line from education to career, sustainability isn’t necessarily as straightforward.
There are certainly easily identifiable sustainability careers: sustainability officers, managers or directors. In these careers, you create, implement and maintain sustainability policies for organizations.
These types of jobs exist across industries, despite the common name. Broadly, the responsibilities remain the same, but the day-to-day varies. For example, a sustainability officer in business does not do the same work as one who works for a non-profit.
Rademacher also points to local government as an option, especially in city management and urban planning. Pacific’s degree in sustainability is also transferrable across careers, whether they’re focused on sustainability or not.
“You could work in a nonprofit, a business, a landscaping company or energy. It could be just about anything,” Rademacher says. “I think the door is wide open, and it’ll really be about students finding opportunities that speak to their interests. That’s part of the reason for the experiential learning opportunity and the robust capstone class. Each student will have something they can talk about in depth, about all the things they used as they progressed in that project.”
The salaries for sustainability careers outpace the median wage for the whole job market with Bureau of Labor Statistics data showing median salaries for environmental engineers being $96,820 and environmental specialists being $76,530 in 2021.
Is a sustainability degree worth it?
It has always been important to take care of our environment, now more than ever. You can be a part of that movement in a sustainability career. This growing field offers you the flexibility to take your experiences into many different industries that work to reduce carbon footprint or even improve our quality of life.
At Pacific, this degree reflects the university’s broader commitment to sustainability. Eco-friendly features are a part of everyday life, with volunteer work, a focus on sustainable practices and a 100% campus reliance on renewable energy.