Natural Resources Major question

applejack
Sun, 25 Mar 2012 10:13:45 +0000

Where’d you get that info, modelgeek? I read somewhere that the median grades are actually lower. If you look at this infographic, it appears that it’s more or less middle of the road:
[Visualizing the Median Grade Report](http://www.astro.columbia.edu/~msalem/courseGrades/)

To the OP, I think you’ll find a lot of outdoor field work no matter which path you choose. Since Natural Resources is both about the hard science and the social application, it’s very cross-disciiplinary, ranging from economics and philosophy to chemistry and biology. Learning and understanding the functions of hundreds of different plant and animal species is not easy but they design the major so you can mix it with other programs across all schools. If you want to be a journalist you could minor in Communication or English or take some enviro engineering courses or if you want to work in urban environments, City and Regional Planning.

The biggest difference in the concentrations is basically whether you want to work in an office or out in the field. If you want to focus on directly managing or researching a wildlife, forest, or aquatic ecosystem such as making the direct decisions to manage wolf populations or restore a fish species to a body of water, do the Applied Ecology focus.

If you want to set or oversee policies at the broader local, state, or federal level, do the Resource Policy and Management focus. That track focuses more on law and how to deal with institutional dynamics rather than on wildlife or vegetative populations. You’ll still learn the basics of ecology so you know what you’re talking about.

If you don’t know what path you want, do the Environmental Studies focus and then make a decision later.