Environmental Science with Professional Experience

Study the physics, chemistry and biology of the Earth’s systems, in this masters-level degree with a strong practical element and a year spent in industry.
There is an emphasis on soil and water quality, pollution and management, but you can also pursue your own interests through a range of optional modules.

Our staff are actively engaged in research and will tailor their teaching to reflect changing trends and emerging technologies within the sector. You will also benefit from small class sizes, enabling staff to support you better through your studies. Our courses bring together expertise from a number of departments, and you will be able to tap into their specialist knowledge.

Participate in regular local trips and longer residential visits, with Fieldwork a major part of this degree. Reading’s award-winning campus is home to over a thousand different animal species and is extremely useful for learning fieldwork skills. It offers multiple habitats for study, including lakes, hay meadows and woodlands, and allows you to step straight from the classroom to the field. The University's large farms provide access to hedgerow, marshland and the Thames.

Visit Somerset to study topics such as flooding, geology and soil formation in your first year. You will have the option to visit Almeria in Spain, which is the driest area in mainland Europe. Here you will visit a solar research station and examples of greenhouse horticulture, and investigate issues such as pollution and water supply. An optional Mediterranean bio-geography field trip is also available.

You can opt to work as an environmental consultant for a real client. You will be assigned a stretch of the River Loddon, and will carry out assessments, liaise with key stakeholders, and report your findings to the Environment Agency.

The course is structured to enable you to pursue your own interests and even allows you to study modules from other subjects, such as biological sciences or meteorology. In the third and final years, you will study modules on topics such as contaminated land management, quantitative data analysis and soil microbiology.

Complete an independent project on a topic of your choice in your final year. You may have the chance to run it in conjunction with an outside society and gain experience of completing research for a major organisation. Previous students have worked alongside Natural England and the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. You may get the opportunity to spend a term studying abroad in areas such as Svalbard and Rhode Island.

Choose to carry out a short placement, which will involve working on a small project for a local company or organisations. This will provide you with valuable experience of professional work, as well as enabling you to develop your research, survey, data analysis and presentation skills. Our department has a dedicated member of staff in charge of placements, who can advise and support you.

Take the opportunity to spend a term studying abroad at a partner institution through the Erasmus+ scheme, in your final year. You could experience life in the Arctic with the University Centre in Svalbard and spend time on research ships gathering marine cores, or you may be able to study marine biology on Rhode Island.

**Careers**

Your practical and scientific knowledge combined with teamwork, writing and presentation skills, and the ability to adapt to changing circumstances will make you highly desirable to a range of employers.

As a graduate you will be well placed to move into a variety of technical and scientific roles within areas such as pollution, land remediation, environmental protection, renewable energy and geological consultancy. Recent students have gone on to work for a range of major organisations including the Environment Agency, Sustrans, Thames Water, the Atomic Weapons Establishment and TV Energy.

Or, choose to further develop your skills by moving into research, teacher training or postgraduate studies.