Career opportunities in Environmental Studies
Our Environmental Studies graduates have found creative and interesting employment in a wide variety of positions. The experience and qualifications acquired throughout their studies, enable graduates to work as environmental professionals in government departments and regulatory bodies, in private industry and, increasingly, with environmental consulting firms. There is growing awareness of the need for this type of professional environmental expertise in the Asia-Pacific region. Australia is recognised as a leader in this field and many career opportunities are opening up overseas as well as in Australia.
Some of the most common opportunities available to graduates are as:
- scientific, planning or education officers in government departments and authorities (for example, dealing with conservation, natural resources, planning, housing, transport, utility supply);
- officers in private environmental consultancies, planning or exploration firms, collecting evidence about, assessing or warning of the potential of environmental impacts;
- journalists, teachers or academics;
- planning or project officers for the Australian Conservation Foundation, the National Trust or Greenpeace;
- environmental officers for major development companies, such as BHP, mining and oil companies, or any number of smaller organisations that have environmental impacts;
- environmental consultants to overseas countries, through direct employment, aid programs or international organisations
Some career profiles of SSEE graduates:
James Hardman
Field Coordinator—United Nations Development Program
James attained a major in Geography at Melbourne University and for the past nine years he has worked for various aid and UN agencies.
He says, 'one of the things I enjoy very much about my work is the incredible range of issues I get involved in. I have worked on projects to do with providing shelter for refugees, training and capacity building, medical and public health, water and sanitation, agriculture, forestry, environmental protection, infrastructure etc.'
James' work consists of project management and design as well as logistics and administration, and he says that some of the main skills he requires includes 'planning and designing reports, as well as researching and writing - skills that I had many opportunities to develop during my studies and which I have found are in high demand in my field as well as in numerous others. In Geography you study many varied and complex problems. Working in development situations, almost always involve complex interconnected relationships, and I find I am able to put in place many of the skills I absorbed during my studies.' He also feels that an Arts degree 'helps prepare students and set them up for a number of different career paths but also instils methodologies and approaches that are well suited to constantly evolving work places and environments and expectations'.
Ben Miller
Research Fellow, University of Melbourne
'My studies in Geography have led me to fascinating places, friendships and experiences that would have been effectively impossible otherwise. I feel very fortunate to have found a job that allows me to combine this within a context of exciting research opportunities.'
After completing an honours degree in Geography on patterns of vegetation composition at Mt Zero in the Grampians and a year of research assistant work studying vegetation fire dynamics in the Little Desert, Ben commenced a PhD in Geography. Within three months of enrolment he found himself in Mexico City where he lived for the next year, undertaking many fieldtrips to tropical rain-forests in the south and east of Mexico where he collected data on the demography and ecology of understorey palms.
After a period of private consulting work for Parks Victoria, Ford Australia, DNRE, and the Melbourne Royal Botanical Gardens on the conservation of Victorian plant species, Ben commenced work as a full-time Research Fellow at the University. Over the past three years of this work he has been involved in projects studying the ecology of tropical trees in New Caledonia, patterns of Oak forest re-growth near Beijing, a spatial analysis of vegetation patterns north of Perth and a botanical survey of a large desert mountain National Park in Southern Pakistan.
Sarah Greenwood-Smith
Environmental scientist, an environmental consulting firm in Melbourne
I have always had an interest in the natural environment and its preservation. During my final year at high school I attended a Youth Ecology Conference in the Philippines and was very much inspired by the local students who had so much passion for their natural environment, yet very limited resources to preserve it. Upon my return, I decided that I was interested in a career in which I could increase community awareness of environmental issues and actively work to increase the preservation of our natural resources.
At University I completed a double degree, a Bachelor of Science with a double major in Environmental Science and Botany and a Bachelor of Arts with Honours in Physical Geography. I studied subjects such as Environmental Hydrology, Water Resources, Geomorphology, Sustainable Development, Environmental Politics and Management and Geographical Information Systems.
During my six years at University I participated in many fieldtrips to locations in Tasmania, South Australia, Falls Creek, Portland and Wilson’s Promontory. During my Geography Honours year I spent three weeks in Young, NSW, applying methods currently used by Australia’s waterway management bodies to assess the health of rivers. I very much enjoyed this outdoor and hands-on method of learning.
After graduating, in April 2001 I was employed as an environmental scientist specialising in Geomorphology. My job is to study the way in which rivers change the shape of the land and the extent to which this may be controlled in the long term.
My first project was to study the physical form of a river in Queensland that was diverted in the 1980s to make way for an opencut mine. After becoming familiar with the natural characteristics, I was able to design a rehabilitation plan to restore the river to its natural state.
My most recent project is to assess the condition of more than 50 riverine sites in the Yarra River catchment. This involves walking along one kilometre lengths of the creeks and observing, among other characteristics, the bank stability, bed form and vegetation composition of each site. Once the data has been collected, it will be translated with the aid of the widely used Victorian Index of Stream Condition. This will allow each site to be compared and management priorities to be set. My job will be to prepare reports on our findings and outline local management issues. I look forward to presenting my reports and observing the positive impacts of resultant management on the catchment.
I enjoy the relevance of my job to the community and the feeling that I am working to preserve the natural environment. The outdoor work is lots of fun and gives an excellent basis for the report writing stage of my work. I am on a steep learning curve in my first graduate position, yet I find that my background in geography gives me a general knowledge to see the big picture of the projects on which I am working.