Career Exploration

Tips for career exploration

• Get experience: The best way to explore possible career pathways is to start getting experience in different areas of environmental work. Internships, field courses, and volunteer work are a few of the ways to get experience.
  
  
• Conduct informational interviews: Conduct informational interviews with people who work in career industries of interest to you in order to gain insights into a career field or company and build your network. You can find folks to reach out to on the Career Advice Network or LinkedIn.
  
  
• Talk to ENVS faculty: Visit office hours with ENVS faculty or lecturers, and ask them if they have advice for you. Tell them about your interests, your passions, your experience (and if you don't have experience yet, that's ok). You can ask them about grad school, too!
  
  
• Discover where ENVS alumni have worked: Look at what kinds of jobs ENVS alumni have done. This might give you ideas of possible careers or positions you could consider.
  
  
• Reflect: Take some time each quarter to think about what classes, internships, or other experiences you enjoy -- and what you don't enjoy. Sometimes we speed through life and don't stop to think about whether our activities are a good fit for our strengths and interests. Keeping track of these reflections will help guide you toward a career that works for you!
  
  
• Meet with a career coach: The UCSC Career Success office has career coaches on staff who are available to meet one-on-one with students.  
  
  

Types of careers our graduates have pursued:

(We also have a list of specific jobs held by ENVS alumni!)

Legislative advocate

Environmental dispute resolution

Practicing environmental law in San Francisco

Environmental organizerconsultant and activist

Consultant to World Wildlife Fund

Enterprise zone coordinator

Director of public land trust

California Legislature Budget Committee

Own environmental consulting firm

Environmental assessment for university

Teaching junior high science

Executive director county resource conservation district

Statewide planner State of California

Program analyst

Cross-cultural environmental mediation

Bay/river management plan project director

Owns building energy consulting firm

Teaching in college outdoor education center

Agricultural researcher & project planner

Science writer

Director elementary school Life Labs

Bilingual elementary school teacher

Director of new product development for grower/packer

Partner/farmer farming collective

Organizing the California Organic Growers Association

Agricultural researcher and project planner

Botany curator

Resource Center for International Agrarian Development

Restoration ecologist U.S. Forest Service

Coordinator of stewardship program

Freelance scientific illustrator

Director of species conservation

Nest attendant UCSC Predatory Bird Research Program

Set up San Francisco's curbside recycling program

Program director of a regional housing organization

Transit/parking director

Works in multimedia education program

Landscape architect

Coastal engineer and GIS coordinator

Economist/Planner, environmental planning services firm

Facilities analyst for university

Park Ranger California State Parks