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0:01
Amanda Mills, Stony Brook University Admissions: We are very excited to have you join us for a presentation about studying environmental challenges and solutions, and we will save time
0:11
Amanda Mills, Stony Brook University Admissions: for your questions. The session is also being recorded. So you'll be able to check that out on the Stony Brook admissions YouTube Page, and we will share some links in the chat for things you might want to bookmark for later, like about visiting campus or taking a virtual tour. If you want to check us out further
0:34
Amanda Mills, Stony Brook University Admissions: again. If you have any questions about admission to the university, you can put those in the Q. And a. We will answer them behind the scenes, but also put questions that you have about these majors, environmental studies and coastal environmental studies in the Q. And A, and we'll see if time to answer those for you as well. Now I'll turn this over to Kate.
1:02
Kate Aubrecht: Well. Kate Aubrecht: good evening, everybody. I'm Dr. Kate Aubrecht. I'm a faculty member jointly in the School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences, where these 2 majors are based. I'm also appointed in the chemistry department, and I serve as the faculty advisor for the coastal environmental studies major, and I'm looking forward to sharing some what we have to offer with you, and answering and trying to answer some of your questions.
1:31
Tara Rider: Hi, everyone nice to meet y'all, I'm Dr. Tara Ryder. I'm a senior lecturer in the School of Marine and atmospheric sciences, and I'm jointly in the Marine Science Division and the Sustainability Studies division which are housed within SoMAS, and I am the advisor for the environmental studies major.
1:54
Kate Aubrecht: Hmm.
1:58
Kate Aubrecht: so as I'm sure you're all aware of not to start with depressing things. But yeah, human activity has really perturbed earth systems and created a whole host of environmental challenges.
2:10
Kate Aubrecht: And we can think about these, certainly from a global perspective. And for some of these thinking about solutions involves global perspectives. But we also could think about this from a local and regional perspective, both thinking about what some of those challenges are and how global issues will impact us regionally and locally. But we can also think about solutions from a local and regional perspective.
2:36
Kate Aubrecht: addressing environmental challenges involves expertise and people from a whole host of backgrounds. You might think of this as being like a science challenge, and there certainly are a lot of science challenges. But if we think about how human activity is degrading the environment. And we're thinking about how, what impacts are going to be on people and how we can both, you know, adapt mitigate
2:59
Kate Aubrecht: problems and adapt to them. That involves a lot of things involving people. And so this isn't just about sciences. It's also about social sciences and communication, and about being able to work with people from different, you know, with different areas of expertise and different backgrounds. So that's, you know, a lot of what we're trying to, you know. Prepare undergraduates to do at Stony Brook.
3:23
Kate Aubrecht: I want to talk a little bit about ways of studying environmental challenges and solutions at Stony Brook. Just briefly, because we're going to be focusing more on the Environmental Studies BA and the Coastal Environmental Studies. BS, but there are certainly science focused majors at Stony Brook that are focusing on environmental issues. I've got some of them listed here. The 1st 3 majors are in the School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences.
3:50
Kate Aubrecht: But there's also majors within other academic units at Stony Brook. There's an environmental track in chemistry as well as an environmental specialization in the Biology major.
4:01
Kate Aubrecht: As I said, it's not just science. And so there are majors within the sustainability studies division of the school of marine and atmospheric sciences that are very much focused on the people aspect of this. So there's an environmental design policy and planning major and a sustainability studies major.
4:20
Kate Aubrecht: And yeah, I've got a link on the bottom here, like for a lot of nitty, gritty details on all the majors. You could just look up like Stony Brook undergraduate bulletin.
4:29
Kate Aubrecht: But the 2 majors we're going to be focusing on this on this evening, I think. Kind of bridge, both coming at it from a science perspective, but then also working on the people policy and communication aspects. So the 2 majors we're focusing on this evening are the coastal environmental studies BS and the environmental studies. BA, but you know, certainly.
4:51
Kate Aubrecht: you know, if you're if I there's also some flexibility that if the student comes in and thinks, Oh, I definitely want to be doing something very science focused. And then, after taking some classes like, Oh, maybe I you know, I'm more interested in another major, or, you know, in moving another direction, there's certainly there is some, some flexibility, and there are some shared foundational courses between a number of majors. So it's not like you're locked into one thing.
5:18
Kate Aubrecht: So just briefly, the Coastal environmental studies degree. It's a Bachelor of Science degree, that is, probably it's got. It's a little bit more of a science focus than the ENS. The environmental studies degree. So the foundational coursework as I've got listed here is 30 to 34, 34 to 35 credits. That's spanning many areas of science as well as calc and stats.
5:47
Kate Aubrecht: The core courses are a course in either global atmospheric change or global environmental change. There's an environmental chemistry course with lab that I teach Kate Aubrecht: a 300 level ecology course. And then students develop skills in geospatial science. So using GIS software, there's upper division electives, 3 credits in upper division science courses and then 2 courses that are more social science and policy focused.
6:16
Kate Aubrecht: We've got some career skills, courses in technical writing and collective action and advocacy. And then everybody does research and internship or a capstone experience.
6:29
Tara Rider: So for the environmental studies major. It is a bachelor's of arts, and if you look at the foundational coursework.
6:38
Tara Rider: it very much is an interdisciplinary foundation. So you're going to take some of the courses more in the natural sciences, thinking about like biology and chemistry and physics. But we're also going to be looking at coursework in the social sciences, thinking about economics and political science and philosophy. So everyone will take from those foundational courses.
7:01
Tara Rider: And when we look at the core courses, they are moving on to more upper level division courses that again are straddling both the social sciences and the natural sciences, and looking at the links between them. One of the things that all of the students in environmental studies as well as in the coastal environmental studies program do is either research or internship credits. And we are going to talk a little bit more about those experiential learning opportunities later tonight.
7:30
Tara Rider: The other thing that we have within environmental studies is we do have then, 3 concentrations, and everyone's going to pick one of those 3 conservations. The 1st one is looking at conservation, biology and biological anthropology. Tara Rider: We also have a concentration where students can focus on marine science or either marine or terrestrial ecology.
7:51
Tara Rider: And then the 3rd concentration I do want to be clear is a very broad concentration. You can kind of pick which of these subgroups, within that concentration of environmental law, waste management and public policy that you want to focus on. But again, this makes up the core credits of what students in environmental studies would be working on.
8:14
Tara Rider: Kate, can you go to the next slide? So one of the things that's really important that we believe within the school of marine and atmospheric sciences? And I'm going to reference it just as SoMAS, because that is a mouthful to say repeatedly, is getting experiential opportunities, getting that hands on
8:32
Tara Rider: chance to work in your field. And so in both the coastal environmental studies major and the environmental studies major, you're going to have the chance to do either or both of internships and research, and let me be clear. You only need a set amount of credits for the internships and the research, but you can always do more than one internship. And we have students who work on a variety of different
8:59
Tara Rider: organizations everywhere from working in not-for-profits to working with government organizations. You can see up here, like we have the Atlantic Marine Conservation Society, which is a not for profit. The South Fork Natural History Museum. But we also have opportunities to work within government. So you can see that we have the New York Department of Environmental Conservation. We have students who will work within local towns Tara Rider: in some of their different capacities.
9:32
Tara Rider: also have opportunities to work and do internships with for-profit companies like J.C Broderick. And there's a whole variety, so you can find an opportunity within your interests, whether you're looking more to work within. As I said, one of those different paths, whether it's government or not, for profits or for profits. But you can also, you know again, kind of push, how you're thinking about applying your degree.
9:58
Tara Rider: And we are very, very lucky to have so many wonderful organizations that want to work with our students. I will say some of these are not paid internships, but some of them are also paid internships, so there is a variety of what's out there.
10:13
Tara Rider: We have students who do internships, you know, in the summer is very popular, but you can also do internships during the fall semester, the spring semester, and even a kind of short, intensive winter internship. So again, there's a lot of flexibility on how you're going to do that.
10:32
Tara Rider: Kate. If you want to go to the next slide
10:41
Tara Rider: again. As I said, we do focus on having students have that experiential learning. So there are opportunities to do internships, but you can also do research both on campus
10:53
Tara Rider: and off campus as well. So we will have students who will work in some of the labs not only within SoMAS, but we have students who work in labs, in the biology department, in the chemistry department. And again, they can do their own research projects, often working with other organizations. So you can see, students here are working for like students for climate action. Tara Rider: We've had students who have used their GIS background to to map different
11:25
Tara Rider: kind of studies, such as with the Hudson River, we have students who have worked in shark research. We also have had students who have created films and have done writing projects that have been published out there as part of their research experience.
11:44
Tara Rider: Next slide, Kate, one of the other opportunities that we encourage students to do is study abroad, and Stony Brook as a whole has a really wonderful opportunity for students to study Tara Rider: in well, over a hundred countries, however, within Somas itself, we actually have several programs that are led by Somas faculty and that have an environmental focus on them. I will admit I am a little biased on this one, because I'm actually involved in 2 of these programs.
12:17
Tara Rider: So I lead both a winter program. But, more importantly, for our SoMAS students, I lead a summer program to Ireland and England, and that one really focuses on looking at kind of Tara Rider: global environmental history with the focus on Ireland and the UK, but also thinking about kind of broad questions, such as water, such as agriculture and comparing urban areas to more rural areas. I'm also involved in the summer program to Tanzania.
12:47
Tara Rider: where students get to look at environment, society and health Tara Rider: and on the Tanzania program. We will work with many of the doctors, both in an urban center. Excuse me in their hospitals, but we also work in some of their field clinics. Students also get the chance to camp overnight on the Serengeti last summer we actually got to see 21 lions
13:14
Tara Rider: as well as some cheetah cups, which was really kind of fascinating. So we talk about, you know how society interacts with the environment, how we're talking about issues of conservation and preservation and what those balances are. We also do offer a winter program to Cuba that is focused around the issue of sustainability. Tara Rider: And we have a program also in the winter that goes to Jamaica, which is focused on tropical ecology.
13:43
Tara Rider: And I do want to be clear. All of these programs can fulfill major requirements for the different majors. They also fulfill the SBC requirements, which is our general education requirements.
13:58
Tara Rider: We do have some really phenomenal support and scholarships for these study abroad programs. I know people often look at the cost and go. I can't do it. This past year we actually offered over $100,000 in scholarships. So I always want to encourage students to apply for these, and they are opportunities that you can do really starting, you know, within your freshman year, going forward all the way up to senior year. Tara Rider: Next slide.
14:33
Tara Rider: As I said, one of the big focuses we have in SoMAS is really making sure students
14:40
Tara Rider: are getting hands-on experience. It's important to have those foundation and core classes which are often discussion based and lab based classes. But we also want to push our students beyond that, even within a classroom setting. So you'll see, we have a variety of classes that do that. So we offer SUS 401, which is integrative collaborative systems. And really, that is a project based class. It's 1 that I have been teaching for the last
15:10
Tara Rider: few semesters in the spring. And I've had a variety of projects. Students actually wrote a grant to put in a native pollinator and butterfly garden, which is what you're seeing in the pictures under SUS 401. So they received the grant, and then they designed
15:27
Tara Rider: and planted the garden, but they also had to figure out how to maintain that garden going forward. So again, thinking about kind of all the different elements that go into a project such as this, Kate, would you like to talk about ENV 321, and the Ecotoxicology lab.
15:46
Kate Aubrecht: Sure. So these latter 2 courses here, environmental, 321 and SUS 351 and 352. These are lab courses, but I don't. They're not that. Sometimes a lab course can be like, you get a list of instructions, do this this and this. And then you go to do this, this and this, and it's like great. I learned the techniques. I know how to do that, but that doesn't bridge as much into thinking about how research is done. So in
16:11
Kate Aubrecht: both of these courses, it's starting with grounding students in learning whatever fundamental techniques they're using, but then branches into having students design their own small research projects. And so these are both what gets called course based undergraduate research of having people do small projects in the context of the course in env. 321. The scope's probably a little bit smaller.
16:36
Kate Aubrecht: That the 1st half of the course, is, you know, the instructors in my course that I'm saying this is the lab we're doing this week. Here's the procedure you're going to follow. Here's the data you're collecting. And then you analyze the data. And then in the latter half of the course, students are designing their own projects. Originally we had this, largely focused around the picture here is of algal turf scrubber units.
17:00
Kate Aubrecht: which is looking at kind of a problem of if there's too much nutrients you've got algal blooms in coastal regions to looking as that as potentially being a sort of a solution. If you could use that to a way of remediating water.
17:13
Kate Aubrecht: We've now gone to having a little bit more broader in what students are choosing to do their projects on. We're in the project phase, of the course now. And I've got students looking at metals concentration in different foods. Yeah, it's probably a little bit more, a little bit more analytical chemistry focused. But there's certainly potential getting this a little bit more field focused again in the future.
17:40
Kate Aubrecht: SUS 351 and 352. This is courses that are offered by Dr. Sharon Cochran, who's involved in the sustainability studies Major, particularly the there's an ecosystems and human impact track within that major. And in this students are looking well. They're studying ecotoxicology, looking at a variety of different
18:03
Kate Aubrecht: contaminants. Roundup is a major one, the herbicide that gets used fairly widely, but then also looking at crumb rubber like, if you play on a turf field like underneath the turf is all crumb rubber and looking at potential impacts of that. And this is a 2 semester course sequence that students are working in like small research teams Kate Aubrecht: on projects that they're designing
18:30
Kate Aubrecht: and so yeah, it's really trying to make Lab court, you know, there's both opportunities to do research in a research lab, but also kind of bridging of having lab courses that are more focused on being research experiences.
18:44
Kate Aubrecht: And
18:46
Kate Aubrecht: now I want to bridge a little bit to thinking about. You know what happens after. And I know when you're seniors in high school. It's already pretty daunting to be thinking about next year, but even be thinking about, you know, 5 years down the line. But maybe your parents are already thinking 5 years down the line. Maybe you are as well. So for students doing the coastal environmental studies, major, I've listed some of where people have gone on to graduate school or law school.
19:14
Kate Aubrecht: probably half of half to 2 thirds of students. I've gone on to graduate a professional school within a cup, either right after graduating or within a couple of years of graduating. Some folks have gone straight into the job market. And have, you know, done well, there. This degree is, even though it's called environmental studies. It's basic. It's it's kind of it's
19:39
Kate Aubrecht: it's kind of more of an environmental science degree that has some social science and communication aspects in it. And that's kind of reflected in where people have what types of graduate programs. People have gone on into that. It's been programs in biology, environmental chemistry, marine policy, marine sciences that it's been
20:01
Kate Aubrecht: fairly science focused, but not, you know, like the marine policy, a little bit less, you know, straight up, science focused. And then a couple of people have gone on to onto law school. And then I've got listed both where some places where people are working and types of positions that they're in. And so these are, I guess I'd call these either science focused or sort of science adjacent.
20:26
Kate Aubrecht: focused, and with the GIS requirement that then some for that, there's 1 course in GIS required for the major. Some students have started taking GIS and really liked it. We have a students can minor in geospatial studies. And then there's also a geospatial studies graduate certificate, and some students have gone on and done that and made that really kind of a focus of what they're doing in their career.
20:50
Kate Aubrecht: And even just with the one course that can be a great foot in the door, either for an internship or entry level positions. If you know, if you've got those skills. And you know, that's not necessarily a skill set that that everybody's got.
21:10
Tara Rider: Help some mute for the environmental studies graduates. They are again coming from an interdisciplinary background which has those foundational classes in the natural sciences, but they also have a fairly large amount of social sciences in it. And you're going to see that they do go on to a pretty diverse
21:32
Tara Rider: role when you're thinking about both where they go on professionally, but also where they go to for graduate schools, so many of our students will end up working in parks, recreation, and historic preservation. Many of them have gone on to become park rangers, and, you know, work in a variety of park settings like that they also do work
21:55
Tara Rider: with quite a lot of government organizations ranging from local towns right up to the Federal Government, often working within planning divisions. Many of them also go on to work in education, both within a traditional classroom setting.
22:14
Tara Rider: but also working quite a bit in outdoor, or what we term nontraditional education. Many of them will work in aquariums and zoos. We do have many of them. That also again pull from more of that natural science background, and may be working directly as aquarists.
22:32
Tara Rider: They're working. I have a student, a former student of mine currently works as one of the seal trainers at the Long Island aquarium. So again, they're able to kind of straddle both the social science and the natural sciences.
22:46
Tara Rider: Many of the students do decide to go on to graduate school. It's often based on both where their interests lie, but also what their particular career path is for those students who go on. They do go into a range of program, while some of them will go into programs that are more in the natural sciences. We do see quite a few of them going into programs that focus on policy
23:11
Tara Rider: as well as in law. And again, these students are going to graduate programs that are local. So you know, NYU to Columbia, but also going outside of the New York area to places like Ohio State. Tara Rider: I currently have students who are in the University of California, and a couple of their schools. But we also have students who will study abroad and do programs
23:36
Tara Rider: such as in right now, I currently have several that are applying or are currently at Trinity College in Dublin, because they're looking at kind of a global
23:46
Tara Rider: scope within the field of environmental studies. So there is a lot of opportunities I did put up these 4 internship opportunities, and the reason I was highlighting them was that students actually did their internships there, and were then offered jobs upon graduation. So currently, for, like the Winter Brothers recycling, one of my students is actually involved in their education program that winter brothers puts out. So again, there's a lot of different opportunities.
24:15
Tara Rider: and students will go on to work in for-profit, not for profit as well as within industry. Some of them will continue on with graduate school. Some will choose to do that immediately upon graduation with their undergraduate degree, but many of them will also wait, you know, a few years to see which path they want to go on, and which graduate program, and that's, you know, makes the best sense.
24:46
Tara Rider: One thing that I always encourage students to do is get involved. And there's lots of different ways to get involved. And that includes within, you know, getting involved in your classes, taking on a leadership, say in some of those research based project classes. But another really fun way to get involved and to really start to create your own network that will go forward with you is to get involved in the clubs.
25:10
Tara Rider: We have a whole variety of clubs on campus. These are just a few that have an environmental kind of focus on them. So we have the Marine Science Club. They do a lot of beach cleanups. They do like to do as they say, their marine geek movie nights.
25:28
Tara Rider: but they will also get involved in things like research, and you can also get certified for diving through the Marine Science Club. We also have the Environmental Club. They really work to, as it says here, to protect and conserve our environment. And they work on issues both on campus.
25:45
Tara Rider: but also off campus as well. We have the Meteorological Club. For those who are interested in weather. We do have faculty that are storm chasers. So you know, students have the opportunity to get involved in some of their research. We have Sunrise Climate Justice Club. So again, thinking about advocacy, and we also have swims the Society for Women in Marine Science. And so this is
26:12
Tara Rider: really kind of helping to promote research done by women in the field and the visibility there, and there we have not only meetings, but we have, like a monthly Swimspiration Speaker Series, so you can see some of the different paths
26:26
Tara Rider: that you can go into. And for many of these clubs they do interact with each other, and many of the activities are really open to, you know, more than just their members. So it's a great way to to get involved and figure out where your interests lie, and also just a fun way to make friends.
26:51
Kate Aubrecht: So we'll be opening this up to your live questions. But we did. Wanted to respond to a couple of questions that were sent to Amanda in advance. Somebody had asked about double majoring in marine sciences, environmental studies. Tara indicated to me, despite what I've written here, people have done it, but it is these majors that we're talking about. All require between 60 to 70 credits.
27:16
Kate Aubrecht: The students need 120 credits to graduate from Stony Brook, although many students will graduate with more than 120 credits. But just looking at, you know that that then a double major can sometimes be pretty credit heavy. There's also general education requirements, although with the breadth of our majors students end up, can meet a lot of their general education requirements with courses that also count for their major. So, as I've got written here, it's
27:42
Kate Aubrecht: probably more common to do a major and a minor pairing. But students, you know there are some students who do double majors. Kate Aubrecht: It is. Tara Rider: Important to note for environmental studies that if you decide to do a double major with marine science, you do need to pick a different concentration. You can't do the marine science concentration and then double major within marine sciences we do have. You're only allowed 6 credits
28:07
Tara Rider: to overlap between either 2 majors, but also your major and your minor as well. And so that is something to consider. But we do have a lot of students that do pick up minors. I know GIS is a really popular minor for my environmental studies major. So again, there's different opportunities. There.
28:27
Kate Aubrecht: Yeah. And as Tara mentioned, there are some guidelines in place on sort of, you know, rules about double dipping. That's not to make things difficult for people. It's also just trying to guide people that it might seem like really great on your resume if you've double majored. But it's also kind of thinking about. How does that complement, what you're already doing? So like? If you're doing a major that's fairly broad, it might make sense to do a minor that you're going deeper in something, or that you're
28:52
Kate Aubrecht: complementing, you know, getting expertise or experience in a different area. So I think it's sometimes you want to be thinking about that in terms of like, what skills and knowledge do I want to have when I graduate rather than you know? Just what can I put on my resume? Kate Aubrecht: And there's certainly. Tara Rider: Don't! Oh, sorry! Kate Aubrecht: I was. Gonna say. Tara Rider: It's oh, go on!
29:11
Kate Aubrecht: There's there's pretty. There's a lot of resources for advising both. At the university level. We have a great undergraduate advisor within Solmos Nancy Black, and then there are faculty advisors for each of the majors. So as you're kind of talking this through, there's there'll be a lot of people to bounce ideas off of as well as when Tara was talking about with the undergraduate clubs. That's also a great opportunity to be developing kind of a near peer mentoring network or talking with other people about what they've done.
29:40
Kate Aubrecht: Sorry. Go ahead.
29:42
Tara Rider: Many students don't choose to do a minor until after like their 1st year, to where they get a sense of where are their interests lying as they take some of those foundational and core classes and go, okay, I really love my major. But I'm really kind of interested in this particular element. So again, students may not declare a minor until after their freshmen, or, you know, even within their sophomore year. So it's not something that you have to come in with
30:07
Tara Rider: already decided. Kate Aubrecht: And you don't. You can graduate with one major also, and do quite well with that. Next question about is, what support is there? There's like academic support. There's lots of academic support that's free. I've got a link to the Stony Brook Academic Success and Tutoring Center. They offer free tutoring in a lot of foundational courses.
30:34
Kate Aubrecht: But I also wanted to make a note here to make use of that. There are, you know, course instructors hold office hours, and sometimes students might be a little daunted like, oh, I don't want to go talk to the Professor, but going to talk to Professor. That's how you, you know, if you.
30:48
Kate Aubrecht: you know, faculty will get to know your name a lot faster if you come to office hours, and then also, when you want to talk about things with people, or if you're at some point down the road looking for letters like, if people have had a lot of conversations with you. We are resources that you want to make use of.
31:06
Kate Aubrecht: Additionally, larger courses might have graduate Tas, and then a lot of our courses also have undergraduate Tas, who are students who have taken the course, done well in it, and can sometimes provide a little bit more of that near peer. You know that you might be, you know, more willing to, you know. Ask a question of somebody who's just a couple years ahead of you than feeling like you're, you know, going to see the Grad Ta or course instructor.
31:30
Kate Aubrecht: But the take home is, there's there's a lot of of academic support available.
31:35
Tara Rider: The biggest thing I can say is definitely go to your professor's office hours. That will be beneficial, not just for that particular course, but going forward when you're starting to look for recommendation letters for internships or grad school, or going out into the professional world, we'll be part of that network where we might be able to go. Have you checked out this particular position, or
31:58
Tara Rider: Hey, someone has contacted me? I know they're looking to hire. So I do want to encourage students that no matter what program you go into, you know, start making those connections with the faculty from the very 1st semester.
32:13
Kate Aubrecht: Yeah. It's part of my mentoring. It's it's part of our job. And it's it's why we do this. It's a part of it's part of my job that I really love, and I love, you know, hearing, for I love lots of parts of it. But yeah, but hearing from students, and you know, you know, talking with, you know, staying in touch with people as they're going along in their journey is yeah, it's it's it's it's a yeah, really important part of our job. So don't you know, you're not imposing on us?
32:36
Kate Aubrecht: And then a pretty specific question about is this a pathway to becoming a teacher. Kate Aubrecht: And I noting here generally, students get a master's in teaching degree. And there are bachelors combined, bachelor's MAT programs at Stony Brook.
32:56
Kate Aubrecht: I was looking at this a little bit more from the perspective of coast of you know that people would be coming at it with a fair amount of biology, chemistry, or Earth science background. In order for admission into the MAT program, you need 36 credits in whatever science you would be certified would have your primary certification in, so you could. Yes, you could do this with a coast or ens degree, but you would then be taking some additional courses in the science that you wanted to focus on.
33:25
Kate Aubrecht: And we both there are. There are. Yeah, there's a couple of Co students I know who are, who are high school science teachers now, and I think there's some ENS folks as well.
33:34
Tara Rider: You can also depending on, you know, if you're not looking for secondary education, but are looking for primary. There are kind of avenues to do that again through the masters in teaching programs. But definitely, many of our students in both coastal environmental studies as well as environmental studies do go on to become certified teachers.
33:59
Tara Rider: Amanda, do you have any other questions, or does anyone out in the audience have any questions. Amanda Mills, Stony Brook University Admissions: So we have. We get this question a lot in admissions. So I figured you'd be the appropriate people to ask for this.
34:15
Amanda Mills, Stony Brook University Admissions: But we get a lot of questions about the environmental engineering minor. And if that's a kind of a popular part of the of choices that students are making. We hear a lot about the GIS minor, but less about the environmental engineering. Is it kind of Amanda Mills, Stony Brook University Admissions: a pathway to a career? Maybe not in engineering, but having an understanding of it, going into the workforce.
34:44
Kate Aubrecht: I could take. Yeah, I know of at least 4 coast majors in recent years who've done the environmental engineering minor and certainly, as you point out there, you know they they cannot market themselves as engineers. I mean that that would be an engineering major but for students who are finding that they
35:04
Kate Aubrecht: coast has a fair amount of breadth, and as students get into their junior year, they start thinking about both. What are they most interested in or what career direction are. You know they think they want to go, and there's enough flexibility in choosing upper division courses that people can start tailoring it for what they want to do.
35:22
Kate Aubrecht: And yeah, students who've done that environmental engineering minor those folks have gone in a little bit more technical directions, like one of those students went to graduate school in environmental chemistry. Yeah.
35:35
Tara Rider: And I was about to say, also, in environmental studies, I have had several of my students do the environmental engineering, and sometimes that is their choice to kind of offset, maybe doing more of a social science concentration such as the waste environmental law and policy concentration. And then they offset doing a little bit more within kind of the natural sciences by doing the engineering
35:59
Tara Rider: minor as well. And again, as I said, GIS is also popular, but I have had several students over the years choose to do the engineering minor. Amanda Mills, Stony Brook University Admissions: That's great. I feel like we don't talk about it that much. So, you know, I like to promote the minors that we don't hear a lot about. We do have a question about common miners that are paired with these majors. So we talked about some. But I know there's also the new climate
36:28
Amanda Mills, Stony Brook University Admissions: solutions minor, but any outside of Amanda Mills, Stony Brook University Admissions: SoMAS that might kind of trend.
36:36
Tara Rider: Some interesting ones within the visual arts. So I've had students kind of straddle again, pulling a little bit more on the social science and humanities side and pulling from the visual arts. I think currently, I have 2, and they've done some really interesting projects. That kind of looked at environmental issues, such as plastic pollution, and then incorporated that into their final projects for the visual arts, doing some type of
37:05
Tara Rider: sculptures. I've had students who one who graduated last year who was environmental studies with a marine science concentration. But she also had a Visual Arts minor, and she did a series of paintings that were all from her perspective as a diver that were really interesting. I do also have many of the environmental studies. Students may also do something like political science
37:31
Tara Rider: as a minor as well. So there is a lot of different paths that students can choose, and it really depends on where their interests lie and potentially what career path they're interested in, what will make the
37:47
Tara Rider: the best sense. Some students are going to do it simply because it's something that they're excited and passionate about some students are going to be focused and going well, what's going to help me, you know. Put myself forward, say, in this particular career path, and I think both of those are really important things to consider.
38:04
Kate Aubrecht: Just to add on to that. There's a student graduated in coast a couple of years ago, who was a Spanish minor and then was working well. She's now working with doing climate adaptation with Cornell. I think she was with the Dec. At this point, but she was doing outreach in Spanish, so developing like short videos about environmental issues that were in Spanish Kate Aubrecht: and then.
38:29
Tara Rider: I had one who did Spanish, too, and she's in the Peace Corps now, and that was kind of her focus. She knew she wanted to work in the Peace Corps, so she was a language minor.
38:38
Kate Aubrecht: Right. And then also thinking about students who, just as Tara mentioned, like people who also with their minor just, you know, did something. They were really interested in. Whether or not it was going to necessarily dovetail with career plans. Like students who are music minors not to. Certainly music could be part of your career. But these were students who were doing it, because that, you know, it made them happy.
38:58
Amanda Mills, Stony Brook University Admissions: Right. And I think that's Amanda Mills, Stony Brook University Admissions: important. When you're in high school. A lot of our audience are probably, you know, in high school thinking, like college is all classes and career. But like we talked about some of the clubs and organizations, I think one of the things that stands out to me
39:16
Amanda Mills, Stony Brook University Admissions: at Stony Brook. We're a large public research institution. But then you have this smaller school of marine and atmospheric sciences which really from the outside, appears like a close-knit community that's very supportive. And I think the majors and the types of careers that
39:38
Amanda Mills, Stony Brook University Admissions: students who are going to choose these majors are going to go into kind of have a purpose and a passion behind them. And I was just wondering from your perspectives if you kind of see that you know community kind of naturally build with the students and the faculty.
39:57
Tara Rider: There's definitely an effort to encourage that. So, as I said, many of us as faculty, we're involved well, beyond the classroom. Many of us are involved in the club. So I'm actually the founder of Swims is actually the New York chapter of an international organization. And I am the advisor for that. We just hosted a national symposium on campus. That was, you know.
40:22
Tara Rider: any of our SoMAS students, actually any stony Brook student was able to register. But then they could create, you know, a larger network. But you have faculty who are involved in clubs. They're involved in getting students in their labs, and many of us again, because just as our students are passionate about the environment and what is happening that's reflected in their faculty. And many of us are doing projects beyond
40:49
Tara Rider: simply the the scope of Stony Brook. So I'm a volunteer with the New York Marine Rescue Center, and I actually see a lot of my kind of, you know, encourage my students to volunteer there, and many of them go on to intern. And actually, their most recent hire is one of our costs graduates. And so again, you know, you have Tara Rider: the faculty who are trying to bring the students in. We have many, many
41:17
Tara Rider: different talks that students can attend. So we have a a weekly talk that's given on both. There's 1 on Wednesdays, and there's 1 on Fridays so kind of the idea of like a brown bag. Lunch. Come here, talk.
41:31
Tara Rider: network with each other, but with faculty, and graduate students and undergraduate students. And so it does become a community where students get the chance to know each other within SoMAS. But again, at the same time getting that opportunity to to know beyond. And I think that's really important.
41:51
Tara Rider: because your interactions with each other with these clubs will often open up new thoughts as someone who has an interdisciplinary background, who, as an undergraduate started out straight marine science and biology, and then picked up a history major that came from taking something that was just sounded like an interesting class. And again, today, I actually, you know, Bridge, both of those backgrounds, while they may not have necessarily
42:19
Tara Rider: thought in the moment. Hey, I'm going to combine these 2 into a career. It is where I am focused now. So it is important to to explore what you're passionate about, but also to
42:30
Tara Rider: to push your boundaries to take that chance and go. Is it something I could be interested in? And it's fine if you go. Nope tried it. Don't want to do it again. That's just as important to learn. But also don't be afraid, because you may find something that you haven't done is part of that passion. You have.
42:53
Amanda Mills, Stony Brook University Admissions: Right. Well, I don't see any other questions from our audience. Do we have any kind of final words of encouragement or advice for our potential future sea wolves, as they kind of Amanda Mills, Stony Brook University Admissions: make their decisions about enrolling at Stony Brook. If they're offered admission, which we certainly hope they are.
43:16
Kate Aubrecht: I think Stony Brook's a great place to study environmental challenges and solutions from a variety of perspectives. And I think, even if you're undecided at this point on you know what, how much, what's the mix of science, social science, you know. How do I want to be doing that? That I think Stony Brook's also a great place to come in, and maybe you know, if you're not entirely sure how you want to be doing that to, you know. Figure that out, you know, as you start taking classes your 1st year.
43:42
Kate Aubrecht: Yeah. As Tara was saying, I think it's a great, you know, community of students and graduate students and faculty. And there's, you know, there's a lot going on. I mean, part of being a research university is that you know that there's talks. Come, you know there's I look at what's going on. It's like, Oh, I'd love to go. I'll see this, you know. 4 different talks this week. But I got to get this. This and this done, which in some ways is, you know, is a good problem to have that there's a lot. There's a lot going on
44:07
Kate Aubrecht: and yeah, as I'll just add one other thing, I have a kid as a senior in high school right now. So I'm seeing this from the other side. So I don't know. Take, you know. Be kind to yourself, you know. Get sleep. I don't know. I'm gonna get into mom mode. But yeah.
44:24
Kate Aubrecht: be great, you know. Give yourself grace.
44:28
Tara Rider: I think that's actually really great advice. And I do want to reiterate that within kind of Stony Brook and within Somas there's a lot of flexibility to figure out exactly how you want to study these environmental challenges, whether you're going to be more emphasizing the social sciences or the natural sciences. Tara Rider: and that there are so many opportunities
44:51
Tara Rider: to get hands-on experience. I think that's 1 of the the greatest strengths that we have in Somas is. You can work in research labs that you get these incredible internships with organizations that
45:04
Tara Rider: are not simply talking the talk, but are really putting that talk into action, and that you get to be a part of that, and you can do it through internships. But you can also do it in many of our classes, and the biggest thing I always tell students is, don't be afraid to try something.
45:22
Tara Rider: you know, to to go. I'm not sure if this is the right path, but to I don't know if I want to join this club. I don't know if I want to try. Try it. It doesn't. It's not a final decision that you have that ability to go. Okay. Tara Rider: I like this, but I want to maybe go in this direction. And I think Somas and Stony Brook gives you that flexibility. And I think that is Tara Rider: really key, because until we do things we don't always know
45:50
Tara Rider: what we truly love at versus what we want to do. So the biggest thing I can say is, get involved. Tara Rider: Don't be afraid to take chances to talk to people, both your peers, but also your faculty. Tara Rider: I love teaching, and I love getting the chance to interact with my students. And I know Kate feels the same way about that, and we're a resource here for you. So good luck! I hope to see you all as future sea wolves. But no matter where you end up landing
46:23
Tara Rider: good luck and realize that you are part of the solution for these environmental challenges.
46:31
Amanda Mills, Stony Brook University Admissions: Yes, that that was really great advice, and it's so true. What Kate said about Amanda Mills, Stony Brook University Admissions: this seems like such a monumental time, where you have all these decisions to make, and all these things that you have to do. But you want to find, like the excitement about it, like you have so many opportunities ahead of you, and you know it's
46:53
Amanda Mills, Stony Brook University Admissions: it's just part of that next step. So we hope that you can find some time for yourself. Do a lot of deep breathing. Maybe get out in nature a little bit, and we're really glad that you joined us for this presentation. And of course, if you have any other questions, you can always contact admissions
47:17
Amanda Mills, Stony Brook University Admissions: our email address. I'll just drop in the chat quickly, but enroll@stonybrook.edu, if you have more admissions, focused questions. We can always talk about those. So thank you both Tara and Kate for presenting, and I hope everyone has a wonderful rest of your day and happy holidays, whatever you celebrate.
47:38
Amanda Mills, Stony Brook University Admissions: Bye, everybody, thank you. Kate Aubrecht: Buddy.
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