Environmental Studies

The Environmental Studies major at Yale-NUS College seeks to combine academic breadth and analytic depth to foster deep learning of and critical engagement with a variety of environmental challenges to human and planetary well-being.

Our goal is to prepare students to be knowledgeable, resourceful, curious, creative, and reflexive agents of solutions or adaptation in the emerging Anthropocene era.

Environmental Studies is problem-driven, forward-looking, and inherently interdisciplinary, with vibrant professional associations and abundant opportunities to contribute in rewarding ways to our shared prosperity.

Students of Environmental Studies learn how to translate a breadth of knowledge into serendipitous moments of insight and discovery. They also develop expertise in one or more fields, which allows for an optimal balance between breadth and depth.

Environmental Studies is a convivial home to natural scientists, social scientists, and humanists, and especially to those who have a foot in more than one field or discipline. As a field of study, a vocation, a profession, or a life-long passion, Environmental Studies is not for the faint of heart.

Students, scholars, and practitioners of Environmental Studies are required to integrate research methodologies, information, and ways of knowing from multiple fields, which requires a certain intellectual grit. No colouring within the lines or simple memorisation and regurgitation. Those of us in the environmental studies community also frequently find ourselves struggling with the moral and emotional enormity of our work.

Environmental Studies at Yale-NUS

The Environmental Studies major at Yale-NUS College seeks to combine academic breadth and analytic depth to foster deep learning of and critical engagement with a variety of environmental challenges to human and planetary well-being.

Our goal is to prepare students to be knowledgeable, resourceful, curious, creative, and reflexive agents of solutions or adaptation in the emerging Anthropocene era, where the causes and consequences of environmental change will spill across tidy disciplinary lines with greater uncertainty, demanding a capacity to think simultaneously about an intimidating variety of issues. 

To advance this mission, Environmental Studies offers academic and applied experiences that provide students with essential analytic, research, and communication tools for interrogating human-environment interactions.  We seek to foster knowledge and skills required of us all as the planet grows warmer, less biodiverse, more unequal, and in ever greater need of the wisdom and leadership that liberal arts and sciences colleges are built to nurture. 

In individual courses and the larger curriculum, the programme strives to practice scholarly multi-lingualism and methodological pluralism; if students will be crossing disciplinary boundaries in their environmental studies inquiries, they must be open to understanding the languages and tools employed by sometimes divergent professional and academic communities. 

Course courses in the environmental sciences, social sciences, and humanities allow and encourage students to approach environmental challenges from the intersection of the College’s three divisions, enhancing the likelihood of serendipitous connections across fields and the discovery of novel approaches to knotty problems.

Environmental Studies Careers

Given the growing recognition of the urgency of climate change and environmental issues, there are many career opportunities possible for graduates with an Environmental Studies degree. Even outside the realm of the environment, the systems thinking and interdisciplinary training provided to the Environmental Studies major ensures that our students are well-placed whatever career they eventually pursue after graduation.

Listed below are just some of the organisations our Environmental Studies alumni have joined after graduation:

• HATCH (Eco-oriented venture capital company)

• Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore (Government)

• Ascendas-Singbridge (Urban development)

• Kyber Network (IT)

• Entrepreneur First (Eco-oriented start-up accelerator)

• The Stakeholder Company (IT)

• ID Capital (Venture capital)

• Forum for the Future (NGO)

• Synthesis (Marketing)

• Accenture (Consulting)

Environmental Studies Degree Requirements

Environmental Studies at Yale-NUS offers students a Bachelor of Science or a Bachelor of Arts degree. Our major combines elements of the world’s strongest Environmental Studies programmes with the opportunities provided by a liberal arts and sciences college in a vibrant and unique Asian city.

Our students and faculty work together on environmental topics both local and global, drawing upon the natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities. Coursework and applied experience expose students to a range of environmental issues from the familiar, such as energy choices and climate change, to the less well-studied, like the rise of consumerism and the impacts of changing settlement patterns.

To make all this happen, the major is organised around an Area of Specialisation (AofS) designed by students in consultation with their advisor in the third year of study. The AofS is supplemented by a rigorous one-year research or practitioner project, and is often informed by study abroad and internship experiences.

Students prepare for their AofS by completing introductory and follow-up courses that interrogate the range of approaches to environmental studies while developing key concepts and approaches in the field. The College’s Common Curriculum also informs the AofS, as do independent readings and other close work with the Environmental Studies faculty.

Requirements for a Major in Environmental Studies

Students may pursue a Bachelor of Arts (BA) or a Bachelor of Science (BS) in Environmental Studies.  Degree designation in Environmental Studies depends upon the composition of the courses in a student’s 20 unit Area of Specialisation (AofS).

  A preponderance of natural-science courses in the AofS leads to a BS in Environmental Studies.  When social-science and/or humanities courses dominate, a student receives a BA.  Additionally, the BS degree requires that students complete a capstone project centered on the natural sciences.

Students majoring in Environmental Studies will typically complete 45 units of coursework, usually satisfied by nine 5-unit courses. Students may apply one 4-unit course to major requirements with their advisor’s permission and thus fulfill this coursework requirement with 44 units.  Students also complete a final-year 10-unit capstone project, for a total of 54 – 55 units of work for graduation in Environmental Studies.

The requirements are as follows:

• One introductory course (taken in Year 1 or 2): Introduction to Environmental Studies

• Two courses in Conceptual Approaches to Environmental Studies (ordinarily taken in Year 2): Courses numbered at the 2000-level in Environmental Studies satisfy this requirement

• One elective course that can be adjacent to the student’s AofS, chosen in consultation with their academic advisor

• Four courses in a student-designed  AofS (taken in Years 3 and 4). By the beginning of their third year of study, students will develop and declare, in consultation with their faculty advisor, a 20-unit (typically four 5-unit courses) AofS. 

• The AofS may be in a specific disciplinary sub-field or address a specific environmental problem. All courses for the AofS must be upper-level or advanced courses, or approved by the Head of Studies in consultation with the academic advisor. 

• Prospective majors may peruse the AofS of current Environmental Studies students on this website.  Academic advisors in Environmental Studies may also provide working templates for AofS in a variety of fields.

Examples of Environmental Studies AofS include but are not limited to the following:

• Tropical Forest Degradation and Revitalisation
• Air Quality in Southeast Asia
• Public Health and Environment
• Global Environmental Politics
• Ecological Economics
• Global Consumption and Consumerism
• Natural Hazards and the Human Condition
• Biofuels in Southeast Asia
• Biodiversity and change in Southeast Asia
• Waste and Water in Singapore
• Global Food Transitions
• The Interplay of Science and Politics in Climate Change
• Environmentalism and the Poor

• Methods (taken in Year 2 or 3): An analytic methods course appropriate to a student’s AofS and capstone project, selected in consultation with the student’s academic advisor.  Conventional data analysis/statistic courses meet this requirement, as do analytic methods courses from other fields, e.g. literary analysis or ethnographic research methods.  Congruence with a student’s chosen area of focus is key.

• Capstone (taken in Year 4): A 10-unit research project, with the final grade awarded at the end of semester two. The capstone project must extend and further develop a student’s AofS.

Requirements for a Minor in Environmental Studies

Yale-NUS students receive a minor in Environmental Studies by completing five courses.  The gateway course the (YID 1202) and at least one 2000-level “Conceptual Approaches” course are required. One-half of this 25-course-credit requirement may be met by courses taken outside of Yale-NUS, subject to approval by the Head of Studies for Environmental Studies.