Land Resources and Environmental Sciences

Updated: September 4, 2020

Do you love science and technology? Do you love to be outdoors? Do you want to help preserve natural environments? If so, you may want to consider a job in the environmental biology, soil and water science, land rehabilitation, agroecology, or land resource analysis and management fields.

Now, you're probably asking yourself what all of those long names actually are. These are degree areas offered by Montana State University in Bozeman. In order to work in these fields a college degree is often necessary. What, more school? Yep, in many cases when you have a degree you would be hired over someone without one.

In general, the areas mentioned above would involve classes that give you a good understanding of biology, chemistry, math, soils, water, ecology, geography, and plants among many topics that are studied. After you learn all about these subjects, you would learn how to use all of the information to solve problems and offer solutions. Some problems you might learn to solve would include pollution, erosion, and reclamation of disturbed or contaminated lands.

Some careers that could be included in these fields are government agency professionals, private consultants, farmers and ranchers, and fertilizer and chemical company professionals. Government agencies employ people to help make and implement laws to protect the environment. A private consultant may work for a mining company to help them reclaim the site they have disturbed. Farmers and ranchers could use the information they learn to be better managers of their own rangelands so that they keep the land in good condition. A chemical company would hire someone that could research new ways to manage weeds.

So, if any of these jobs sounded interesting or fun keep in mind that they, and many others like them, are available to you through education.

Updated: September 4, 2020