Campus to Careers Environmental Alumni Survey

Fill out the Campus to Careers Survey online here.

Join the Facebook group for Environmental Alumni here.

Download Career Insider: Online Graduate Degrees in the Environment here.

CEDD is providing all member schools an opportunity to participate in the third round of a long-term study of the career pathways of environmental program alumni and how their academic preparation relates to their future careers.

Increasing national concern regarding the aging of the environmental labor force and the need for more students to pursue careers in this field makes this an especially relevant time for such a survey. Currently, very little is known about the relationship between campus and environmental careers and we lack comprehensive quantitative data about the environmental workforce. The results of this survey hold the potential to influence and alter the decisions made by policymakers, students and the participating institutions. This survey of alumni of environmental science programs will be crucial in identifying the diverse career pathways of graduates of environmental programs and learning what colleges and universities can do to better prepare them for career success. This study intends to track alumni over the course of their careers.

The survey instrument was developed in partnership with Dr. Richard Freeman, Herbert Ascherman Chair in Economics at Harvard University and director of the Harvard Law School Labor and Worklife Program. He is regarded as one of the top labor economists in the country. Kavita Shukla, from the Harvard Law School Labor and Worklife Program the National Bureau of Economic Research, is managing this study.

The survey will allow us to answer questions such as:

• What types of careers do environmental graduates go into?
• How do program types relate to career choices and progression?
• How do graduates of interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary programs progress in the workforce compared to graduates of disciplinary programs?
• What curricular approaches and elements lead to certain types of careers?
• What can colleges and universities do to better prepare their students for career success?
• What factors influence the decisions of individuals to pursue different types of environmental studies and careers?

This is the first such study of environmental alumni and we expect the results to be fascinating and valuable in making decisions about how we can best prepare the next generation to pursue environmental careers.

We are distributing the third round of the survey in the spring of 2010. All interested schools should contact us for further details.

We are also using new tools for distributing the survey in an innovative and interactive way, including posting the survey on Zoomerang at http://www.zoomerang.com/Survey/WEB2295UJNU7J3 and utilizing social networking tools such as Facebook, to bring students and alumni together from across the network of CEDD member schools and encourage them to participate in this historic study. This will shorten the time that it will take for students to respond and add value to their participation.

Please send any questions or suggestions to: David@NCSEonline.org or shuklak@nber.org.