Course details

Summary

Turn your interest in the environment into a career

With a BA (Environmental Studies) you’ll be prepared for a meaningful and important career.

What is it Like?

When you take environmental studies at Massey, you will explore the dynamic relationship between human society and our environment. It’s a relationship that is always changing. You will learn to think critically and understand the big picture, rather than seeing environmental questions simply as problems that can be solved easily with a technological fix.

Tailor a degree that’s just for you

With a BA (Environmental Studies), you can choose to explore almost anything to do with the environment, from a scientific, social, cultural or economic point of view. You can also bring together courses from a range of disciplines to create a degree just for you. Your major starts with the course Society, Environment and Place, which introduces you to the diversity of human geography.

From there you build up your knowledge by looking at New Zealand environmental issues, then moving on to a course such as Sociology of the Environment.

Careers

Our society is becoming more environmentally aware and career opportunities in this area are growing. Many local, regional and national government agencies are employing people to focus specifically on aspects of the environment and how it can be preserved, including:

• Allocation of water resources
• Ecological restoration
• Endangered species management
• Waste and toxic substances management
• Weed and pest management

Requirements

From a base of a 100-level Geography course, you develop your study of environmental issues through examining New Zealand's Environmental Issues along with techniques of social research then advancing to Global Environmental issues. From these compulsory elements you can develop your own particular interest areas whether they are Geography, Social Anthropology, Philosophy, Sociology, Economics or sustainable development.

Major requirements

A major in Environmental Studies consists of 135 credits (nine courses).

Note: the courses with prefix number 121 and 132 count towards the maximum number of courses you can take from other degrees other than the Bachelor of Arts degree. Therefore once you have passed the compulsory 121 prefix courses you will only be able to take another seven courses from other degrees.

Entry criteria

Students must have successful completion of a qualification equivalent to the New Zealand Year 13 - NCEA Level 3 University Entrance.

English Language Requirements:

• IELTS score of 6.0 (no band less than 5.5)
• TOEFL iBT score of 80 overall (min 19 in Writing)
• PTE Academic score of 50 Overall (min 42 in communicative skills)
• Cambridge English score of 170