Colleagues,
The recent IPCC report provides motivation for ES educators to talk about student advising. What's new from the IPCC (though not new to any of us) is that for the first time, the panel has given us a timeline for action.
In recent years, we have held out the idea to our students that achieving the 2 degrees C target (450 PPM CO2e) was not an economic or technical challenge, rather one of political will and leadership. The IPCC confirms this, for now. But the panel is also clear that absent serious emission reductions in the next decade, 2 degrees will no longer be within economic reach.
What does this mean for young people who understand the sustainability challenge, and want to throw themselves into the fight to change the future? In fact, students realize that they have to bend the CO2 curve in their twenties, because if they (and we) wait, by the time they are in their thirties, then 3 degrees C will be the best we can do.
Student advising revolves around the question we get from students: should I take a "year off"? The IPCC has made crystal clear that this would be the equivalent of my father's WWII generation asking, in 1944, "should we take a year off before heading to the beaches of Normandy?"
For students who get the profound sustainability challenges facing humanity, and who know they want to do this work, the answer is a clear no to "time off". How then can we help these students get the experience and training they need to build careers in sustainability leadership? How can they become powerful people, in positions to drive real change in 2018 or 2020?
Political activism is one clear route, and critically important. But many of our students need to find work to pay off student debt, and may not have the aptitude for front-line politics. For these students there are two options: work or graduate school.
In this economy, finding meaningful work driving sustainability with just a BA and not much of a network is extremely challenging. The most likely outcome is a couple of years working odd jobs and taking on low level internships. And after that, graduate school. The result: two "wasted years".
I know-there is value in those "wasted years". In the nineties, I used to advise students to take time off. But that was then, and time is no longer our friend.
Obviously, if students don't know what they want to do, then they should not go to graduate school. But for students who want to change the world, who aren't finding that great first job, and who don't want to be activists-- send them here to Bard (or other career focused terminal Masters programs run by folks on this list), where we give them the professional training and experience they need to step into serious work in the their mid-20's and have a real impact in the next decade.
Bard CEP's core curriculum combined with a required extended internship and thesis, moves students into serious sustainability work in two years. Of the twenty-seven Bard CEP second-year students currently writing projects or theses this year, twelve are already working in environmental policy jobs that emerged from their internship and thesis projects. Read more here, or below.
Financially, avoiding those "two wasted years" also makes sense. If they intend to take on the debt anyway, the earlier they come out of a career focused masters program, the earlier they will also be earning a higher salary. Students should also be aware of this little known option: if they work in the non-profit sector for 10 years, the balance of their student debt can be forgiven.
The IPCC has given us a clear final call. If you are talking with talented seniors or recent alums, without decent jobs, who want to heed that call, and who do know they want a career "changing the rules" (environmental or climate policy) or "playing the game" (sustainable business), then please advise them to give me a call. I am glad to give generic career advice, and also, of course, discuss options here at Bard.
Our application deadlines are May 15th, and we consider talented applicants throughout the summer, as do the other great graduate programs in this space.
Look forward to others thoughts on this one.
Eban
By Molly Williams M.S. '08, Assistant Director of Admission and Public Programs
At the Bard Center for Environmental Policy, twenty-seven second year students are hard at work on Master's theses, ranging from landfill gas capture for the NYC transit fleet to water quality management on Wuxi lake in northeast China. But the graduate students are not all based on the Bard campus in Annandale. Over a third of them are working on their theses while employed in jobs they found through Bard's Masters in Science programs.
Margaux Granat, MS Candidate '14, RPCV Armenia, 2009-11
Margaux Granat works on the impact of climate change on women in developing countries, at the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), in Washington, DC. Her masters thesis, to be completed by this May, focuses on how gender is considered and/or included in climate finance mechanisms, specifically in the REDD+ mechanism's programs in Mexico. According to Margaux, "I am doing [my thesis] as a consultancy report for IUCN and hope to develop, through the analysis, a toolkit for identifying where there are gender gaps and what barriers (social, political, economic etc) exist in the country limiting a gender sensitive REDD+ process as well as positive in-country context that encourages and promotes gender mainstreaming in the mechanism."
She says that Bard CEP's unique graduate program helped her get the job. At Bard, students in their second year complete an extended, high-level professional internship, that begins in June and ends in January. For Margaux, and for a number of other students, the internship turned into a job, or opened a door to a related position.
Dr. Eban Goodstein, Bard CEP Director
Bard's graduate program is structured around a first year academic curriculum that integrates science, economics, politics and law. "The program front-loads a rigorous core curriculum, freeing up students to pursue specialized internships in the second year", says Bard CEP Director Eban Goodstein.
In the past, students typically returned to campus in the second semester of the second year to complete the master's thesis. Increasingly, however, Bard CEP students are pursuing a "non-residence" option to finish their degree.
Having already secured employment in their chosen field, these students work remotely with their thesis advisors, while also attending workshops on-line one day a week. Students skype into a live classroom, joining their cohort in residence, on Wednesday afternoons and evenings.
What kind of environmental policy work are these second year Master's students doing? In addition to Margaux's work at IUCN:
- Libby Murphy is a climate outreach specialist at New York's Department of Environmental Conservation, focused on sea level rise.
- Lauren Frisch is on a research team at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, studying ocean acidification.
- Alan Kroeger is working for the Environmental Defense Fund helping to promote sustainable palm oil production to address deforestation.
- Sonia Slavinski works with the Global Shea Alliance in Ghana, addressing industry-wide sustainability for production and distribution of this African nut.
- Justine Schwartz is employed at the Federal Reserve in Atlanta, helping improve the Bank's internal operations from an environmental sustainability standpoint.
- Jada Garafalo is on a research team at the Center for Disease Control trying to understand the environmental determinants of lyme disease.
- Brady McCarthy is a researcher at Resources for the Future, concentrating on state-level implementation of carbon controls through the Clean Air Act.
- Sara DiNovi is employed by McMennamin's, a restaurant chain in Portland, Oregon, where she manages composting, recycling, and water management.
- Serafina Zeringo is a research analyst in the Massachusetts State Legislature where she supports the Committee on Environment, Natural Resources and Agriculture.
- Megan McClellan works for the Woodstock Land Conservancy on a rails-to-trails initiative.
- Jed Wolf is working for Global Green in Los Angeles, assessing how LEED neighborhood development rankings can be used to improve local sustainability.
Even for students who are not employed before graduation in May, Bard CEP's program provides a leg-up in career development. "As part of their Masters of Science degree, all of our students have been through a mentored job search, written cover letters, and been through job interviews in order to land their internships," states Director Goodstein. "Upon graduation, our students have a significant policy job on their resume and have demonstrated the ability to reflect on that experience through a serious academic thesis. These advantages matter to employers."
Our students come in, often right from their undergraduate school, with the vision and courage to change the future. Bard CEP gives them the tools, knowledge and practical experience to realize their dream and make the world a more sustainable place, one job or internship at a time.
Eban Goodstein
Director, Bard MBA in Sustainability & Director, Bard Center for Environmental Policy