ENVS Advising Resources

This flowchart summarizes what should be taken every year and how you can add a minor or co-curricular activities to build out your IC education.

Welcome, First-Year Students!

We are happy to have you join our community and we look forward to getting to know each of 
you. Start your path through our program with 100-level Foundation (introductory) courses:
 

Fall Only
• ENVS 120 Environmental Sentinels - This hyper-experiential course uses wilderness 
awareness and survival training to teach local natural history, environmental awareness, 
and skills in field methods. Learn how to connect with and understand the local 
environment wherever you may be.
 

Fall or Spring
• ENVS 119 Introduction to Environmental Humanities - Learn how human values mediate 
human-environment relationships. Explore your own connection to the environment 
and a particular “Place on Earth” in context via a humanistic engagement with history, 
politics, literature, religion, philosophy, and art.
 

Spring Only
• ENVS 121 Introduction to Environmental Science & Technology - Learn how technology is 
the root cause of most of our environmental problems today, and how technology might 
also be our best solution. This is our introductory environmental science course,
developed in a place-sensitive way to take advantage of our location and its people.
 

After completing the 100-level Foundation courses, take ENVS 220 Human-Environment 
Geography and ENVS 292 Critical Skills in your sophomore year. 
Start to think about what your Intensives (ENIN) will be. Intensive topics rotate on two-year 
intervals (see the “Intensives” document). Prioritize the Intensive portion of your program, and 
plan ahead to accommodate the rotated topics within your other academic plans (e.g. study 
abroad, internships, etc.).
 

Start building relationships with ENVS faculty members by asking them about their ongoing 
research or scholarship initiatives. You can start working on your three-credit requirement for 
individualized study as early as your first year.

If you have not yet completed ENVS 119, 120, and 121, these are your priority courses. Take 
these as soon as possible. 

If you have completed the 100-level Foundation sequence and/or you are in your second year, 
take ENVS 292 Critical Skills and ENVS 220 Human-Environment Geography (spring only). 
Take ENVS 275 Intermediate Seminar this year or next year.

Continue thinking about and planning your schedule to accommodate two ENVS Intensives. 
Remember that Intensive topics rotate on two-year intervals (see the “Intensives” document). 
Prioritize the Intensive portion of your program, and plan ahead to accommodate the rotated 
topics within your other academic plans (e.g. study abroad, internships, etc.).

Build relationships with ENVS faculty members by asking them about their ongoing research 
projects or scholarship initiatives. You can start working on your three-credit requirement for 
individualized study as early as your first year. 

It’s also never too early to start thinking about an off-campus internship as an option for 
completing your individualized study requirement. You can also take on an internship beyond 
this requirement, either for your interest or for its professional development value.

By this time you should have completed the 100-level Foundation courses (ENVS 119, 120, and 
121), and you have probably also taken ENVS 292 Critical Skills and ENVS 220 Human-Environment Geography. 
If you haven’t yet taken ENVS 275 Intermediate Seminar, take that course this year.

This is also the time in your career when you take a deep dive into environmental science with 
two ENVS Intensives (see the “Intensives” document). These four courses (coordinated in two 
pairs) should be completed after all five Foundation courses. Intensives should be your first 
priority for scheduling. 

If you have not yet done so, make concrete plans now to complete your two Intensives during 
this or next year (fall or spring). Build the rest of your schedule (including study-abroad, 
internships, etc.) around these courses.

Continue working on your three-credit requirement for individualized study. You can start this 
any time by talking with a faculty member about their research or scholarship. 

Consider an off-campus internship for one to three credits to complete your individualized study 
requirement. You can also take an internship (beyond the individualized study requirement) for 
its professional development value or simply for your own interest. ENVS faculty have strong
relationships with a diverse array of potential employers throughout our region in the private, 
public, and non-profit sectors. To set up an internship, first speak with a faculty member about 
your interests, then communicate with the organization of your choice. For registration, work 
with a faculty member to complete the requisite forms for ENVS 495.

This year is about bringing it all together. 

Take ENVS 475 Advanced Environmental Seminar and make the most of it. 
If you haven’t finished your ENVS Intensives (both pairs) take the last of them this year. 
If you haven’t taken either of your ENVS Intensives, don’t panic. But you must take one
Intensive pair each semester this year (fall and spring), and you will have to plan the rest of your 
schedule around these courses.

Complete your three-credit individualized study requirement. If you have not started this by 
now, you are still (always) welcome to approach a faculty member about their research or 
scholarship, but your best option is probably an off-campus internship.

ENVS faculty have strong relationships with a diverse array of potential employers throughout 
our region in the private, public, and non-profit sectors. To set up an internship, first speak with 
a faculty member about your interests, then communicate with the organization of your choice. 
For registration, work with a faculty member to complete the requisite forms for ENVS 495. 
This is the big year for career planning as well. Talk with your adviser or a trusted faculty 
member about your strengths, interests, and opportunities. We all want you to succeed.

First of all, welcome to ENVS at Ithaca College! We hope you find fast friendships here and build 
professional relationships to last your whole career. The best way to settle in quickly is to seize 
every opportunity to get involved. Start by setting up a meeting with your academic adviser. 
You will meet with this faculty member several times a year, and you can meet with them as 
often as you wish. Introduce yourself to the Department Chair, Administrative Assistant, and the 
other faculty. Get on our “espstudents” email list. Ask other students about their work in lab 
groups, workshops, and other co-curricular activities. Attend the next Course Expo, which 
happens every semester just after the midterm break (with free food).

Depending when in your career you transferred into our program, and from where, you will find 
yourself starting your journey where it best suits you. Maybe you have Advanced Placement or 
International Baccalaureate credits. Maybe you earned college credit in high school. Maybe 
you already have an Associates degree. Maybe you came to ENVS from the Pathways program 
or another major at Ithaca College. 

Whatever the case, you have not (yet) experienced the unique interdisciplinary place-based 
experiential environmental education of ENVS at Ithaca College. Our Environmental Science 
(B.S.) major program requires only 39 credits, but all of them matter. So, regardless of where 
your credits come from or what you accomplished to earn them, we can’t use them to 
substitute for major program requirements in Environmental Science. We wouldn’t want you to 
miss out on any of our unique experiences. 

Now, that doesn’t mean your credits aren’t worth anything. As we’ve said elsewhere (see the 
“Buildout” document), your program requirements are the core of your experience, but they 
are also just a starting point. You will build your degree into a powerhouse, and your earned 
credits are part of that plan. And, of course, they count toward your 120 for graduation so they 
are, in a real sense, money in the bank.

As part of the 2022 overhaul and improvement of the Environmental Science (B.S.) program, the Department 
of the Environment revised how it offers advanced courses. Rather than cobbling together upper-level elective 
courses one by one, you now take these courses in coordinated pairs, integrated on a common theme. 
Although Intensives focus on a single theme, what you learn in these courses transcends the theme. Intensive 
courses teach topical content (facts), but also epistemology, theory, and methodology, all in the context of the 
contemporary environmental crisis. What you learn in a course on trees and forests (for example) is relevant 
to a range of other subjects.

Choose Intensives based on your interests and curiosities. But don’t worry if you can’t take the Intensive of 
your dreams. You will learn a lot from any Intensive, regardless of the theme.

Fall 2026

Food

Spring 2027

Technology

Landscapes

Your program requirements are small in number (only 39) for a reason. Ithaca College’s liberal arts degrees are 
flexible, so you can choose your path. That means, however, that completing your program requirements is 
just the starting point for a robust academic career.

To propel your career, you need to build out your degree program to your maximum benefit. Think about: 

• Are you already a strong writer and confident speaker? If not, take some courses in Writing or World 
Languages Literatures and Cultures to strengthen those skills.

• Do you have the quantitative or technical skills you need for the career you want? Try COMP 110, MATH 
145, MATH 240, or any lab science course in BIOL, CHEM, or PHYS. 

• How is your language facility? The value of two (or more) languages grows every day.

• Is your computing capacity where it needs to be to hit the job market within four years? Try anything in 
Computer Science, especially COMP 110.

• Could you map your environmental issue of interest? There are two courses on campus focused on 
teaching geographic information science and spatial analysis. MATH 221 uses ArcGIS. COMP 124 uses 
QGIS. 

• Can you manage the organizational, managerial, or financial end of your dream job? Check out Legal 
Studies or the Schools of Business and Communications.

• Are you up to date in your understanding of diversity and justice? The Center for the Study of Culture 
Race and Ethnicity focuses primarily on this work. So does Women’s Gender and Sexuality Studies. 
Several Education courses do as well. 

Think about “gateway” courses - those prerequisites for other courses at Ithaca College you have your eye on 
for later. For example:

• BIOL 122 Principles of Biology Ecology and Evolution: This course covers organisms to ecosystems in 
scale, and it offers a solid foundation for anyone interested in pursuing environmental research. It’s a 
prerequisite for upper-level lab and field offerings, including General Ecology. (The molecule to 
organism scale BIOL 121 might also be of value for many Environmental Science majors.)

• CHEM 120 and 121 Principles of Chemistry (with lab): These courses provide the foundation for upper-level (including environmental) work in not only chemistry, but also ecosystem health, pollution, and 
toxicology (e.g. ICToxLab).

Finally, consider any specific line-item or course quota requirements for graduate programs or jobs you wish to 
pursue. For example, does your target program or job or require:
• X years of a foreign language?
• Y level in math?
• Z credits in lab science?