Environmental Science or Environmental Engineering?

EarlyAction95
Thu, 05 Dec 2013 15:30:48 +0000

Thanks a lot for taking time out to compose such a detailed and well written reply!

I actually don’t want to work as a traditional engineer. At least not for a long time. I pretty much want to use engineering practices in a more business based environment.

I have considered civil engineering with an environmental concentration! And applied to Duke University for this exact course. But I’m kind of second guessing myself. I wouldn’t want the course to be too heavily focused on designing complex machines, I’d rather study more about the science behind the environment but then I keep reading that an “environmental science” major is not very “employable” and that again scares me.

A possible fix to this could be that I do environmental engineering and take as many “environmental science” electives as possible, BUT, that would mean that I’ll have to drop my plans of the second economics major and I definitely don’t want to do that!

I’m also very interested in “industrial engineering” which is basically “systems engineering”, that is to find new ways to solve problems etc as you said. But it’s not available in many universities, and since I’m an international student who needs substantial financial aid, I am not able to apply to any university that offers that major. I’ll probably end up doing a masters in industrial engineering if everything goes according to plan :)