Welcome to the start of a new semester!

August 28, 2022

The first week back is a wondrous and occasionally stressful time when EVST majors fret over completing the major’s core and concentration requirements and when students in other majors look for environmentally themed courses that complement their plans of study.  The ensuing FAQ’s tend toward variations on these three.  Why are so few of the HU/SO core or SC core courses listed on the EVST BA and BS degree checklists being offered this term?  Why can’t I find EVST courses that match my concentration (from majors) or that match my environmental interests (from non-majors)?  How do I enroll in YSE courses? 

I will address the questions in order. 

At any given time, the Yale course catalog lists more than 2,000 courses taken by undergraduates.  Yale faculty have considerable freedom to add, switch, or modify the courses they teach.  This academic freedom is part of the miracle of a world-leading liberal arts education delivered by the world’s top scholars.  It also means that assembling a list of required and recommended courses is a never-ending task that relates to the degree checklists in two ways.  First, the checklist categories, e.g., BA or BS Natural Science Core or the Humanities/Social Science Core, will always show more courses than are being offered in a given semester or academic year.  Not every core course is offered every year and very few are offered in consecutive semesters.  Second, we are continually modifying the checklist in response to changes in the course catalog, removing discontinued courses and adding new ones that fill identified requirements.  The AY22-23 checklist differs from its predecessors and the AY23-24 checklist will as well. 

Our objective is to assure that EVST majors have at least one course option and preferably more in each checklist category in every fall and spring semester of enrollment.  For example, in the upcoming semester FA22, Yale Course Search shows three courses in the BA and BS Humanities/Social Science core requirement, three in the BS Natural Science/Field Lab requirement, two in the BS Natural Science core, and seven in the BA Natural Sciences core. 

What does all this mean for students who just want to find relevant concentration courses or who just want to study something cool about the environment? 

In a few words, there are 1056 environmentally relevant courses that Yale College students can take. 

EVST senior and peer mentor Bennett Hall recently conducted a search of Yale course catalogs 2015-2021 using key terms and an analysis of course descriptions and syllabi for relevancy to EVST concentrations that identified 1056 unique courses, i.e., no double or triple counting for cross-listings, that match the search terms or criteria.  Focusing on the most recent three years in the study period (AY18-19 through AY20-21), Bennett’s search showed that 192 were offered 3 or more times in the recent three-yearperiod.  577 were offered one or two times.  274 or about a quarter of the total were in the catalog but not offered during the three-year study period. 

Who are the programs and departments sponsoring all these courses and why can’t I find them? 

Only 28 of the 1056 claimed EVST as their primary sponsor.  The others are all around you.  87 programs or majors sponsored at least one environmentally relevant course between 2015 and 2021.  YSE, listed in the catalogs as ENV or F&ES, was number one, having sponsored 229 courses.   26 programs and majors sponsored at least ten.  Four (ANTH, HIST, GLBL, ENGL) sponsored between 50 and 60 and eight, including EVST, sponsored between 20 and 40.   

In any given semester, the Yale School of the Environment offers dozens of courses that are open to undergraduates.  The process for enrolling and receiving credit for graduate and professional school courses can seem mysterious for first timers.  Don’t be discouraged and do these three things.  If you see an “ENV” course that interests you and it’s your first time taking a YSE course, start by checking out the YCPS special academic arrangements entry on taking courses in the graduate and professional schools.  Then, email the instructor to request permission to enroll in the course.  If the instructor says yes, complete and submit the online blue form.  The course should appear on your registration worksheet, perhaps initially with a “zero credit” status.  It takes a few days for the system to apply credit.  If you start having doubts, follow up with a note to your RC dean or the EVST Program office so they can track your enrollment request. 

I conclude with the conventional advice.  Get familiar with all the tools and techniques for searching the Yale catalog so you can find your own cool stuff.  No one knows your interests like you do.  But, once you’ve done your searching and have some ideas or questions about what might work for you, feel free to reach out to Professor Freidenburg or myself, to our Program Manager Linda Evenson, or to a Peer Mentor.  We are all very happy to serve as sounding boards or as aids in answering your questions.  Just keep this in mind.  No one person, not even your conscientious DUS, can keep up with all the courses that might appear in the vast and ever-changing Yale course catalog.  So, the search for the cool stuff is a burden we happily share together. 

Welcome back, 

Professor Fotos 

DUS for Environmental Studies