As someone who wants to make a difference in the effects of climate change, what would you suggest studying? What programs should you look into when applying for university?
Good question and this is my favorite type of inquiry. The answer is: it depends. What do you mean by ‘make a difference’? Environmentalism is slow, frustrating, and painful. It’s not easy. You have to learn to write, understand how governments work, and learn how to negotiate with terrible people.
Don’t search for schools by rankings; search for an experienced professor who will advise and challenge you for four years. Be sure the professor has real-world experience and run projects outside of the classroom. Dr. Ed Carr of USC, for example, teaches geography and he runs the Humanitarian Response and Development Lab (HURDL). HURDL focuses on climate adaptation, gender, and agriculture issues and their field work is in interesting countries. He has real world experience and he pushes his students to publish.
For me, higher-ed offered two things: skills and knowledge. Skills are what I learned from experiences, knowledge is what I got from testing and rote learning.
I mainly focused on skills. If you’re going to be a successful environmentalist (or anything) it’s absolutely imperative you learn how to write, and write well. Take advanced writing classes and push your limits to the max. You need to hit all the notes; technical writing for the sciences (should be obvious why), creative writing for the arts (to help you “see”), and business writing (very important for communicating with decision makers).
Also in the skills category is networking. You absolutely have to network the shit out of your professors and any and all contacts. While it’s good to have a lot of friends in your cohort, it’s much better to have colleagues in your field who are connected to jobs. Learn early: you are competing with your cohort for the same jobs.
You’ll need reference letters, so create rapport early and often. Always shine during internships, definitely send thank you letters when you’ve finished and left the job!
Maintain relationships with profs even if you’re not taking that prof’s class. Talk about what you want to do openly, and ask directly for help, topics, and tips. If you do not ask, you will not receive!
Create and maintain a circle of specialists for professional advice - you’re in public health, so sit down with each professor during office hours and discuss your goals and how to achieve them. Have a clear agenda and decently clear focus during these meetings:
I’m Ms. Awesome and would like to meet with you to discuss potential career options. How about this Friday at 10am for coffee at the cafeteria?
Professors, especially ones who have practiced in the real world, are very connected to jobs and resources in ways that do not come out in the classroom.
Networking is hard. If you learn the art of networking during these school years, you’ll be polished by the time you get out into the real world. You’ll be light-years ahead of your graduating class, which, as you’ll see, are applying for the same jobs as you are.
Then there are classes that will build on these skills: statistics, macro-economics, law, city government, architecture. All of these areas are vibrant and take a hybrid (“multi-disciplinary”) approach.
With stats, you’ll be able to better understand how to read charts and graphs and stats in any report, be it financial or environmental - you’ll have an excellent bullshit detector.
With macro-economics, you’ll be able to argue for better health policy using numbers culled from government databases.
With law, you’ll finally learn why history matters, how to interpret a decision, and how to deepen your research skills.
City government will help you understand how public health and policy is actually implemented (public health classes don’t!). It’s a rare opportunity to learn how gvt functions, so take advantage.
Architecture or art history, again, will help you “see” the world and interpret context and culture. You’ll be better equipped to understand and make better recommendations for, say, the poor in New Orleans by understanding the cultural nuances of neighborhood territoriality, front-porch design, plantation mentality, and historic preservation - all of these things are barriers to better public health, and architecture or art history provides a framework for you to understand how to interpret culture into better programs (trust me!).
Finally, see my other posts on Law School, women in the environment, and Pros/cons of Law School.Keep in touch, Michael
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