Environmental Studies Major
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About the Major
The environmental studies program focuses on advanced social science courses and is intended to prepare students for careers in fields such as environmental planning, policy development and sustainable resource management. The degree blends foundational studies in environmental science, economics, ethics and political science with advanced study in the social sciences to develop the skills necessary to address societal needs and concerns involving the environment.
Jobs in Environmental Studies
- Environmental scientist
- Consultant
- Recycling manager
- Nature conservation officer
- Park ranger
Past Elon Environmental Studies Internships
- Ocean Mammal Institute, Hawaii
- The Utopian Seed Project
- Langan Engineering and Environmental Services
- Ransom Consulting
- The Ocean Foundation
Related Majors
Work at Loy Farm — from building a house to researching solar panels — provided plenty of opportunities for hands-on learning
As a student at Elon University, Kade Iervolino spent a lot of time on Loy Farm.
The property, which Elon acquired in 2000, is home to the Center for Environmental Studies. It’s also a place where students can get hands-on learning through horticulture, agriculture and research — and soon live in custom-built, eco-friendly dorms.
The Loy Farm Living-Learning Community — known endearingly as the Tiny House Project — will open in the fall of 2024 with six sustainable homes and be followed a year later by six more. A total of 24 students will eventually live on the farm while experiencing the sustainable living, building and agricultural practices learned in environmental studies courses.
And Iervolino played a role in making that happen.
As a student of associate professor Robert Charest, Iervolino was a part of the team of student designers and builders who created one of the first houses. He’s been a part of the project since the spring of 2023, when he took Charest’s Sustainable Design Technologies course and became a part of the project management team, tasked with understanding the budget and reaching out to distributors for various building materials.
Iervolino became so invested in the project that he gave up a study abroad opportunity that summer to continue working on the house.
“I fell in love with doing this project here and really wanted to help,” he said. “This was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”
That summer wasn’t the first time he stuck around to dedicate himself to the project. Iervolino graduated from Elon in December 2023 with a Bachelor of Science degree in environmental studies and a minor in finance. With the house still incomplete, he decided to stay another semester to see it through.
As a design-build research assistant, he was the leader when Charest couldn’t be onsite, working eight hours a day, five days a week in the spring of 2024.
“I have been Robert’s right-hand man here for the past year and a half,” Iervolino said. “I gained a lot of knowledge on building sustainable houses. My teamwork and leadership skills have grown throughout this experience. There were many frustrating obstacles that I had to navigate through. This ultimately furthered my patience with myself and others, enabling me to look at the whole experience as a learning opportunity.
“My problem-solving ability grew the most because he was not always there, and I would have to make the decisions on site.”
Unfortunately, the house wasn’t finished by the end of the spring 2024 semester — though it and five other contractor-built houses were still set to open in the fall — and Iervolino couldn’t stay on for another summer because he had already taken another job.
Interestingly enough, the build wasn’t the only reason Iervolino spent a lot of time at Loy Farm. For his senior seminar, he was a part of a group research project that sought to make the solar field next to Loy Farm more sustainable and greener.
“We created a pollinator garden to benefit the ecosystem surrounding it; this would provide flora, fauna and organisms the ability to thrive within the vicinity of unnatural structures like solar panels.” The group also did research on whether produce could be planted under the panels; they found that while it was doable, there wasn’t a big enough operation at the farm to efficiently make it work at the time.
The group also researched if the new Tiny House community could help aid the solar field — if the students who lived there could eventually make cleaning the panels part of their chores. The group recommended that future senior seminars go into more depth about the possibilities, including whether they could use goats and sheep to graze around the panels instead of using lawnmowers, to reduce emissions.
Another opportunity that Iervolino took advantage of while at Elon was study abroad — a semester studying in Germany and South Africa. In Berlin, he studied international finance and had a chance to get in touch with his German roots. In South Africa — which he described as the best trip of his life — he took two environmental studies electives, which included doing local research on the botanical gardens in Cape Town.
Iervolino had originally come to Elon wanting to major in finance and minor in environmental studies, but as he continued taking courses, he discovered he was more passionate about the environment. (One of his classes, a lecture/lab about energy and the environment, involved a lot of physics and solving real-world problems. “I just really enjoyed the physics part of it and how we were actually creating solutions and talking about different pathways the world can take,” he said.)
He eventually swapped his major and minor and hopes to one day combine the two and teach businesses how to make money while helping the environment. He also wants to create a renewable energy investing company that allows people his age to invest small amounts of money.
“We have all these amazing ideas but don’t always maximize our accomplishments because of a lack in capital,” he said. “I really believe our generation can invest in green energy and gain financial freedom while helping the environment.”
Did You Know?
- The strength of the curriculum emerges from its interdisciplinary perspective — for example, discussing water resource issues in geography, physics, biology, political science, ethics and environmental science classes.
- The program culminates in a capstone Senior Seminar, in which students work in teams to develop a community-based project, much as they might in a professional setting. Students must be able to analyze data, conduct field research and critically analyze studies and other materials associated with environmental issues.
- Students participate in a wide range of courses across the university with opportunities to engage in local, regional and global environmental issues. In synergy with the Elon University Center for Environmental Studies — which oversees the Environmental Education Center at Loy Farm as well as the Community Garden —students can engage in deep, meaningful experiential learning.