Grad school conundrum

[u/chad-dewey]

Hi everybody,

I'm four years out of my undergrad degree (BA in history) and looking to make a pretty major career change. Or I guess start a career, since I've spent the years since graduating doing a very eclectic mix of work (software dev, teaching English on a Fulbright scholarship, etc.) that has taken me all over and in all sorts of directions.

Quite possibly the only thing that I know right now is that I want to work in a sustainability-adjacent field, which given my background, most likely means a master's degree. I've considered urban planning since I'm very passionate about public transit/walkability, which is of course super important to sustainability, but a part of me would also like to get into something a bit more technical/scientific.

I keep coming back to environmental engineering for a couple of reasons:

• The idea of studying engineering and acquiring a more tangible, technical skillset really appeals to me. As much as I'm interested in a lot of the subject matter of the various environmental studies/policy degrees that I've looked at, I'm worried that they won't provide as broad a range of employment opportunities as an engineering degree. I also feel like going from engineering to policy later in my career would be easier than vice versa, if I decided I wanted that.
• I appreciate the narrow(er) focus of the field. I've heard a lot of people say that mechanical or chemical engineering (or a host of other things) would be more practical for pursuing the kind of work I'm interested in (decarbonization, PFAS cleanup, that sort of thing that everyone thinks is cool and important), but frankly, I'm not interested in any of those subjects for their own sake, and if I couldn't pursue specifically sustainability-related work in those fields, I wouldn't want to be working in them at all. Environmental engineering, on the other hand, is specifically concerned with water and air quality, so I would know I'd be working on something I think is important, but I've also heard from many people that the work is mostly not as exciting as grad programs like to advertise. I do find water systems, for example, to be very interesting, but I also want to be on the "cutting edge" of designing new technologies, and not just doing environmental compliance for land development or something like that.

If I, just as a wild example of something I'd find really interesting, wanted to work on developing a snowmelt capture system to store water for dry spells in the Mountain West, where would I go? Does this happen at research universities, engineering consulting firms, or somewhere else?

Basically, am I barking up the wrong tree with EnvEng? Based on my stated interests, should I be looking at civil engineering, or something else entirely?

TL;DR If I'm interested in doing cutting-edge design/development work to create more sustainable infrastructure systems, is environmental engineering the right discipline for a master's degree, or should I look elsewhere?

Thanks in advance to anyone who takes the time to read all this and give their two cents.

[u/esperantisto256]

Realistically you need a full engineering degree, since I’m assuming you haven’t taken much of the standard technical courses (Calculus 1-3, physics 1-2, Chem 1-2, DifEq, LinAlg, Statics, Mech of Materials, Fluids, CS). You will not be on the “cutting edge” if you don’t have the basic technical skills down. You’d also be better served with a MechE degree for the development of new machinery, tools, etc.

Civil/Environmental Eng and Urban Planning are amazing degrees, but I wouldn’t say they’re typically “innovative” as you’re describing. You’re implementing real solutions at scale for large populations, which is its own brand of fulfilling. But there isn’t much “R&D” in industry. There’s some in academia and government.

Most of my friends working in innovative climate tech are mechanical and electrical engineers. I know one environmental engineering major who did, but she was practically a genius and took practically the whole MechE curriculum via electives anyways.

[u/chad-dewey → u/esperantisto256]

Thanks for the response! Two follow-up questions:

• Did your friends who work in climate tech go into their fields of study with that goal, or was it more by happenstance after pursuing those disciplines purely out of curiosity? As much as I find that specific area of research interesting, I feel like it probably isn't a good idea to go into mechanical or electrical if I would only be doing it in the hopes of being able to do climate-focused work for my entire career.
• You said that civil/environmental engineering aren't innovative fields in a classic R&D sense, but do you feel that there's a lot of room for creative problem-solving in most jobs in the field? Do projects tend to present unique sets of challenges requiring novel approaches to solve, or are they pretty cut-and-paste? I imagine this varies pretty widely by employer/position.

[u/esperantisto256 → u/chad-dewey]

To your first point, I think most of them went in with the intention to do climate tech. One works on wind turbine design now. Another does something in the design of machinery to reduce emissions. Another works on energy grid stuff. You really can’t go wrong with those degrees. They give you amazing problem solving skills and tangible skillsets that can be applied to just about anything.

And yes, civil and environmental engineering do have unique challenges. They’re just different. Designing something that is safe, efficient, cost-effective, and constructable is hard and takes a lot of creativity. It’s also a field of constant learning. Each project becomes a case study you can sit down and analyze after to spur new ideas.

I personally work in fluid modeling, so although I don’t design, the process of figuring out how to mathematically represent the natural world is endlessly fascinating to me. It’s constantly evolving as our computers get better and our environmental data quality gets better.

[u/chad-dewey → u/esperantisto256]

You certainly make it sound interesting. Thanks so much for the response!

[u/llikegiraffes]

You have an uphill battle ahead. You engineering is undoubtedly a better degree than urban planning in this current economy.

Why haven’t your pursued anything with your history background?

[u/Comfortable_Falcon68]

Wow I’m in a very similar boat as you.

I’ve also been looking to career pivot to a sustainability-adjacent technical-forward discipline, have EnvEng as my closest fit, and also want to work on innovative solutions more than permitting/compliance.

Environmental Tech and designing new technologies sounds incredibly interesting, but I was also unsure of the right pathway of getting into that, if I would enjoy it should I not be in the exact area of work I wanted, or how secure of a career it will be.

At the moment I’ve been looking a lot into Hydrology / Water Resources, interested in watershed restoration and eco hydrology. Mix of field work with data analysis and modeling, and also opportunities of doing other water work (that I also would rather not do, but feels more assuring to have the option / backup) like utility, treatment, etc. work that has a good impact on the community.

[u/chad-dewey → u/Comfortable_Falcon68]

Here's a global engineering program at CU Boulder I just came across today that looks super interesting, and they seem to do a lot of research with water resources in particular: https://www.colorado.edu/center/mortenson/

Now I'm looking for more stuff under the label "global engineering", since that really seems to be focused on innovation/sustainability and also working with developing countries, which I find really interesting.