Undergraduate Advising

How to get advising support

If you’re looking for other UCSC campus resources like academic support, wellness, and social opportunities, visit this resource list. 

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Advising office

Our office is located in the Interdisciplinary Sciences Building on the 4th floor in room 405. Our advisors are only in-person on certain days, so check our drop-in calendar before stopping by.

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Meet the advising team

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Declaring our majors

If you are within the deadline quarter to declare, the completion of this process is required regardless of progress towards major qualification courses. Transfer students declare by 2nd quarter. First-year students declare by 6th quarter. 

Step 1: Complete required classes

Verify completion of all required courses to declare by looking at the “Major Qualification” in catalog.

Environmental Studies B.A.

Agroecology B.A.

Environmental Studies/Biology B.A.

Environmental Studies/Earth Sciences B.A.

Environmental Studies/Economics B.A.

Step 2: Make an academic plan

Students may create their academic plan before the quarter they need to declareon their own, using our step-by-step instructions. Or meet with an ENVS advisor/ peer advisor. 

Step 3: Meet with an ENVS faculty member

Once the academic plan has been approved by ENVS advising, students meet with a faculty member (not a lecturer or advisor). Choose faculty with work and research areas of interest. 

At this meeting, talk about academic plans, career goals, and possible enrichment opportunities/internships. Faculty will sign off on a Google sheet for ENVS advisors to verify the meeting has occurred.

Faculty-only Google sheet 

Step 4: Petition to declare, wait for a follow-up email

Login to your MyUCSC portal > Undergraduate E-forms > Petition for Major/Minor > Complete the form and submit. 

ENVS major concentrations are not required. Students can either select one or choose “no concentration.”
Students will receive a confirmation email once their declaration is finalized. Students should take any actions requested in the message.  

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Independent study

Independent study courses can take various forms and offer students an opportunity to work directly with faculty on a research project, including directed reading, supervised research, and organized projects relating to environmental problems. Depending on the complexity of the project and the number of weekly hours expected, independent study projects will carry either 2 units or 5 units.

How to enroll in independent study

• Step 1: Formulate an idea with help from TA’s, peers, mentors, and ENVS faculty.
• Step 2: Select one or two ENVS faculty members and bring your idea to them during their office hours.
• Step 3: Once a faculty member has agreed to work with a student, the faculty member will fill out the Request Enrollment in ENVS Independent Study Google form.  Independent study courses do not exist on the schedule of classes and can only be added through this process.
• Step 4: ENVS advising will follow up with you after the form is submitted to provide the student with enrollment information.

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Course substitutions and exceptions

Policies by major type

Environmental studies majors (single major)

Students are eligible to use substitutions for two of their upper-division ENVS electives. These two substitutions may include:

• Pre-approved substitution courses: No petition is necessary. However, many of these courses have restricted enrollment and/or prerequisites. You must contact the appropriate department or instructor to determine your eligibility.
• Petitioned exceptions such as:
  • Upper-division courses from another UCSC department which are not on the pre-approved list
  • Comparable upper-division environmental studies courses from other institutions or programs, including the Education Abroad Program (EAP), Wildlands Studies, or Sierra Institute 

Combined environmental studies majors

Substitutions are not allowed for ENVS upper-division electives for any of our combined majors with economics, biology, or earth sciences. Substitutions for upper-division electives for the partner department must go through that respective department’s advising office.

Agroecology majors 

Students can petition to substitute one of the four AGEC electives (see petition process). This substituted course may include:

• Another ENVS upper division course (104-179) not listed as one of the Agroecology electives
• A relevant course in SOCY, LALS, ANTH
• A relevant course taken in a study abroad program

Petitioning for substitution

Environmental studies single majors and agroecology majors can petition to substitute a course for an upper-division elective by filling out our petition form, including uploading supporting documentation. The desired substitute must be:

• A course with an equivalent workload to an upper-division course in ENVS and a similar topic 
• Thematically within the field of environmental studies.
• The UCSC Registrar’s office has accepted it for counting as units. The units must be transferred as upper-division coursework. 

Substitution requests are subject to approval by the department and are considered within the scope of the student’s entire study plan. 

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Field courses as upper-division electives

Students in the environmental studies major and combined majors (not agroecology majors) may take intensive field courses that count toward several upper-division units and fulfill major requirements. See the details for each option below, and for more information about the field study experience, see our Undergraduate Field Study & Experiential Learning page. 

ENVS 107 A,B,C: Natural History Field Quarter

• ENVS and ENVS/ECON majors: counts towards three upper-division electives of choice or natural science elective. 
• ENVS/BIOE and ENVS/EART majors: counts towards two upper-division electives of choice. 

BIOE 151 A,B,C,D: Ecology And Conservation in Practice Supercourse

• ENVS and ENVS/ECON majors: counts toward either three upper-division electives or two upper-division ENVS electives and a senior exit. 
• ENVS/BIOE major: students can use the supercourse toward three upper division electives (either ENVS electives or BIOE electives) or toward two upper division electives and the senior exit.  
• ENVS/EART combined majors: students in this major cannot use BIOE 151A as a senior exit requirement but could still use the supercourse to count as two upper-division ENVS electives of choice. 

XENV 188: California Ecology and Conservation course

Learn more about the course on the Natural Reserve System website.

• ENVS and ENVS/ECON majors: counts toward three upper-division ENVS electives of choice. 
• ENVS/BIOE majors: can use the supercourse towards three upper division electives, either ENVS electives or BIOE electives. 
• ENVS/EART major: counts toward two upper-division ENVS electives of choice. 

Most students take only one of these competitive, intensive field courses. If a student takes two intensive field courses, our department’s policy is that the intensive field course credits may count towards a maximum of four upper-division electives (and the senior exit requirement, in the case of BIOE 151 A,B,C,D). Non-UC field classes that are approved for upper division credit via petition count toward those totals. This policy does not include ENVS 104A and ENVS 104L, which students may take for upper-division credit in addition to any intensive field class. 

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Senior comprehensive requirement

The senior comprehensive requirement is designed to integrate the knowledge and skills learned throughout the environmental studies curriculum and is a required component of all of our majors. Senior exit options vary for each of our different majors and concentrations. Students can find the options for their particular major in the UCSC catalog. Options may include a senior capstone, senior seminar, senior thesis, senior internship, or supercourse. 

The thesis archive linked above was compiled by the Pepper-Giberson Chair in Environmental Studies (Dr. Gregory S. Gilbert), the Alfred E. Heller Chair in Agroecology (Dr. Stephen R. Gliessman), the Department of Environmental Studies, the UCSC Center for Integrated Spatial Research, and the UCSC Library. If you find errors or have special requests, please report them to envs1@ucsc.edu.  

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Honors requirements

The Department of Environmental Studies awards three types of honors to students graduating from our majors: department honors, highest department honors, and senior comprehensive honors. These honors designations are recognition of outstanding achievement by ENVS students and are printed on their transcripts and diplomas. Please see the catalog for information about how students qualify for department and highest department honors.  

Senior comprehensive honors 

Products from all senior exit requirements may be considered for senior comprehensive honors, including final research papers from capstone and senior seminars, senior theses, and the final product from senior internships.

Internship projects may be solely a longer research paper/professional report or a combination of a shorter research paper and another professional product (e.g. video, curriculum, field guide, museum display, built project). In the latter case, both the short research paper and the professional product (or a picture and detailed description of a built project or display) must be submitted. If students conduct a group project, there must be a minimum of an 8-page individually-written research paper for each student involved.

Honors must be nominated by the student’s faculty sponsor and evaluated by the department. Faculty typically decide whether to nominate student papers for comprehensive honors, but students can ask their senior exit instructor to consider their final senior project for honors determination. The top 10% or less of all senior exit products will ultimately be considered truly outstanding and awarded honors. 

Evaluation criteria

• Articulates original and achievable research questions/aims/thesis*
• Outlines and justifies tangible objectives that meet the needs of an internship agency+
• Includes an appropriate review of the literature and/or prior actions addressing a similar problem 
• Utilizes appropriate methods and/or analytical approaches to answer their research aims/questions/thesis or meet the objectives of their internship project
• Makes a contribution to the work of an agency, to the academic literature, and/or to environmental problem-solving.
• Critically analyzes the results of research and places them in the context of the broader literature on the research topic*
• Represents outstanding writing skills
• Cites and formats references correctly and consistently using APA or another discipline-specific citation format
• Student demonstrates independent research and problem-solving skills during the research and writing process (evaluated by nominator only)
• Student responds to and carefully incorporates feedback (evaluated by nominator only)

*Capstone papers, senior seminar papers, and theses only. | +Senior internship projects only.