While taking care of the earth and working towards a cleaner, greener future for all would ideally be the goal of every college student, it goes without saying that many students do not have the environment in mind at all when worrying over all the other details of university life, from scholarship applications to course schedules, social engagements to dorm life. However, for those students who seek to be more environmentally aware, here are a few ways to accomplish earth-focused goals.
Online Options
Increasingly more popular due to the demands of the general student population, online university credit courses are definitely one option for going green while gaining a degree. The beauty in choosing online class options whenever possible is that the carbon footprint of your academic career doesn’t have to be dependent upon your major.
Every online university course should help students cut back on commuting times since they won’t need to be driving to classes, and this reduction in fuel emissions is the common result of all online courses. In this way, online electrical engineering courses can be just as green as online biology classes.
Consecutive Classes
When online classes aren’t a reasonable possibility, students can still choose to make their class schedule as green as possible by choosing to fill their course schedules with consecutive classes. Alternatively, students could also commit themselves to only driving to and from campus once a day.
While consecutive classes would make following this commitment a more likely possibility, choosing to stay on campus to study in between non-consecutive classes would also be another perfectly environmentally friendly option for achieving the same end result.
Green Majors
Fortunately, many majors are currently available that could be excellent options for green-conscious students. Various engineering concentrations like a NJIT master in electrical engineering can often incorporate some earth-friendly courses, as a solid understanding of how to best harness the powers of nature to provide environmentally friendly energy resources is very much needed in the workforce today.
Other majors such as political science/government-related majors could also easily fall under the “green” category. Such studies should prepare students to be able to write earth-friendly legislative proposals in the future.
Environmental Stewardship Clubs
Finally, even if a student finds that these other options really aren’t feasible for his/her college career schedule, they could still see about getting involved in his college’s environmental stewardship club. If no such club exists, it may even be possible to found one. Typically such clubs do everything from raising awareness about environmental issues to monitoring recycle bins around campus.
Overall, even though some majors can more readily be used to engage in green policy matters, all university students who actively seek to be as green as possible during their college careers should be able to find some way to help them accomplish their goals.