My Environmental Studies Degree - Worth It?

The 15th August 2013 was one of the longest days of my life. At 6am, I was a sweaty ball of nerves mentally praying that I’d got the grades needed to study Ecology at Bournemouth University. By 11am, I was agreeing terms with the University of Kent to do Environmental Studies instead. I’d not heard of ‘adjustment’ (the opposite of clearing) until the night before. That day was a wild ride but after an anxiety-inducing morning, it felt as though the course of the rest of my life had been reset. In July 2016, I’d graduated from a Top-20 university having studied a subject matter than was hot on the political agenda. The world was a vast and cracked open oyster, ready for me to raid and conquer. Did it all go to plan? Well…

I’ve alluded to the direction of my career before and all of the hurdles in between. For further reading, I’d recommend ‘Why being a young naturalist sucks’. But after you’ve finished reading this. In summary, graduation opened very few doors which meant I essentially needed to rethink my career path pretty quickly. I could have studied a masters, got involved with unpaid internships or taken a year out to travel the world whilst simultaneously networking. Adult life unfortunately makes no exceptions for this and you can’t pay your gas bill on good vibes only. I needed a salary and I didn’t have time on my side. It would’ve been nice to have the bank of mum and dad offer me guaranteed financial security but much to my dismay, I was no longer a ‘child’’. An undergraduate degree from a decent university certainly helped me get a step up, regardless of the actual subject matter, so there’s no begrudging that. 

Did I choose the wrong degree? With Environmental Studies, the focus was on social sciences and taking on a more anthropological perspective on conservation issues. I’d always say that anything deeply scientific is not my strong suit, so zoology or marine biology would not have been an option. The difficult aspect to consider when you start a degree is where it will lead. You don’t worry about your career on results day or freshers week, you worry about what mixer is cheapest and whether you can genuinely die from a hangover. A degree feels like just one further step on the path you’re supposed to tread, a path that started in nursery and has been laid out for you ever since. I only panicked about getting a job and the rest of my life at the tail-end of my final year and in honesty, it’s not in a university’s best interest to carve out your career. Firstly, it strongly involves your own impetus and secondly, as long as they have your tuition fee, they’re satisfied.

Thus far, I’ve painted myself as a helpless victim in an unfair world. Is it as black and white as that? Definitely not. You can’t blame me for not focusing on the world beyond university. It’s frightening and I’d assumed the transition would be straightforward. Every other development in my life had involved an element of hand holding but this next chapter was clearly not going to be as merry. Undergraduate life only helped to create a false bubble of comfort with very little insight into what was coming next. I went to war with a shield made of cider cans. Being a student is a toxic combination between feeling adult enough to make independent decisions but with cushioned consequences. I shrugged off the notion of getting a part time job as a student because I wanted to surround myself with fun. I turned my nose up at volunteering because that sounded like effort. All valuable avenues for me that I wished I’d had a kick up the backside about.

Did I enjoy myself though? Absolutely. I thrived at university and built social circles that have stood the test of time, even today. I fully embraced the student way of life, much to the ills of my wallet. As far as lectures and seminars, I genuinely engaged with the subject matter. All of my classmates shared mutual passions and I actively wanted to learn. I joined university as simply a birder but left as a conservationist. I felt for the first time that i was amongst others that spoke my language and it was sensational. There were no other degrees readily available that weren’t simply focussed on science, so the marriage with anthropology very much aligned with my own perspectives on the subject. To put it simply, I was gutted when those glorious three years came to a close.

So to summarise: was it worth it? My student loan is a hefty price to pay (once I start paying it off) but even though I’m not Attenborough’s apprentice, I would say the whole university experience was so vital as my life has gone on. I certainly could have started an apprenticeship, cut out the tuition fees and experienced adult life earlier, but I may not have been allowed the same opportunities, plus what would be the fun in that? I expected a brilliantly paid job and a clearly set out career to be presented before me upon a silver platter with minimal effort. Yet, I’m surprised that it didn’t all go to plan. For anyone wanting my condensed advice, you can get an undergrad degree by all means but make sure you do all you can to prep for the big wide world out there.

Some people pursue their passions with their degrees acting as perfect springboards, others simply use it as another line on their CV’s. As long as you know you’d enjoy further studies and are prepared to graft beyond what is expected of you, you can have no regrets.