University of Southern California
AC-4: Graduate Program

In the junior year of the B.A. or B.S. program, a student has the option of applying for a progressive Master of Arts degree in Environmental Studies. Requirements for admission to this program include an overall grade point average of 3.2 or better and completion of at least 32 units of the core curriculum prior to attaining senior status. Once accepted, the progressive degree student begins taking a mix of graduate and undergraduate course work in the fourth year, followed by a fifth year of graduate course work.

Course work in the Master of Arts program includes professional training in the preparation and review of environmental planning documents.

Green Technologies is a highly interdisciplinary degree program that emphasizes green systems and the environment, energy technology and efficiency, and sustainability and society. The discipline seeks opportunities for alternative sourcing, conservation, efficiency and repurposing through an understanding of product life cycles from origins to recycling or inevitable disposal. Green technologists will design products, processes and complex infrastructure systems to promote sustainable attributes of importance to the environment and the global community.

The focus of the MS, Environmental Risk Analysis degree is on advanced training for students with an existing science background. Students will enter the MS program with a BS degree in a core natural science field or in engineering, environmental science and certain fields of geography. Students take a core curriculum in science, engineering and finance, which is supplemented by important tools courses in risk assessment, statistics and computer modeling. Students learn about the basics of environmental science in a two-semester combination of courses and seminars (ENST 501, ENST 502, ENST 503, ENST 504). An advanced environmental science seminar (ENST 505a, ENST 505b) is offered in a two-semester sequence and ties together science, technology and finance with risk assessment and policy. The first semester of the course is devoted to analyzing case studies taken from business, industry and government. During the second semester students work on a project that employs the tools they have acquired in linking science, policy, technology and finance.

A master’s thesis is not required for the MS degree. The MS degree in environmental risk analysis will give students the quantitative skills needed to understand and assess environmental risks and to use that information in business, industry, government and society.

Business is increasingly involved in social and environmental issues. On the one hand, government and civil society are exerting increasing pressure on the business sector to help address the world’s pressing social and environmental sustainability challenges, and on the other, a growing number of businesses are seeking to respond proactively to these challenges. To equip students to play effective leadership roles in this expanding arena, we offer the Graduate Certificate in Sustainability and Business. The certificate will prepare students to help shape solutions to social and environmental sustainability challenges, both from within and from outside the business sector.

The certificate may be completed on either a full- or part-time basis. Most classes applicable to the program are offered during both daytime and evening hours. Applicants may apply for admission to begin the program in the fall or spring semesters as well as in the summer, depending on course availability.

With increasing urgency, organizations and governments require leaders to design and implement sustainability-focused policy and planning practices that help communities improve in the present without compromising the future. The USC Price graduate Certificate in Sustainable Policy and Planning develops analytic and methodological skills and provides students an interdisciplinary curriculum centered on key environmental and sustainability issues in policy and planning.

"This multidisciplinary program provides students with the tools necessary to understand and quantify the sources of energy use in buildings and landscapes. Studies emphasize improving sustainable design choices regarding natural and man-made systems considering the performance of the built environment, the reduction of its embodied and operational energies, and the influence of other resource issues.
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