Biological & Environmental Sciences Focus Area

Career Motivator: Analyzing

  • Values intellectual effort, scientific inquiry, math
  • Wants to understand and predict physical, biological, or cultural phenomena and practices
  • Likes to work with theories, do research, test ideas
  • Apt to be analytical, cautious, independent, curious, introspective, critical, studious 

Careers by Focus Area

While far from comprehensive, the career pathways below can serve as a reference point to start brainstorming common career outcomes in Integrated Studies. To learn more about what you can do with your major, schedule an appointment with a Career Coach. For all other questions, talk to an Integrated Studies Advisor.

  • Biologist
  • Public Health Educator
  • Pharmaceutical Sale Representative
  • Environmentalist
  • Veterinarian Assistant
  • Hydrologist
  • Geologist
  • Environmental Activist
  • Dental Hygienist
  • Clinical Laboratory Scientist
  • Researcher

Applicable Course Subjects

ADVS, APEC, ASTE, AV, BENG, BIOL, CEE, CHEM, CS, ENGR, ENVS, GEO, GEOG, LAEP, MAE, MATH, OPDD, PHYS, RAM, PSC, WATS, WILD

Popular Courses in Biological & Environmental Sciences

Prefix Course Credits
ASTE 3440 Science, Technology, and Modern Society (DSC) 3
ASTE 5400 Food, Land, and People 3
ADVS 3200 Ethical Issues in Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology (DSC) 3
APEC 3010 Intro to Agricultural Economics and Agribusiness 3
APEC 3012 Intro to Natural Resource & Regional Economics 3
BIOL 3020 Evolutionary Biology 3
BIOL 4040 Fundamentals of Epidemiology 3
BIOL 4750 Plant Physiology 3
BIOL 5550 Freshwater Invertebrates 3
CHEM 3650 Environmental Chemistry (DSC) 3
ENVS 3010 Fundamentals of Natural Resource & Environmental Policy 3
ENVS 4700 Communicating Sustainability (CI) 3
GEO 4210 Geography of Utah 3
GEO 3100 Natural Disasters 3
PHYS 3150 Energy in the Twenty-first Century (DSC/QI) 3
PSC 4050 Greenhouse Management and Crop Production 4
PSC 4810 Climate and Climate Change (DSC/QI) 3
PSC 5500 Environmental Land Ecosystem Climates 3
WATS 3000 Oceanography (DSC) 3
WATS 3700 Fundamentals of Watershed Science (CI) 3
WILD 5700 Forest Assessment and Management (CI) 3

Courses by Applicable Subjects

Courses listed below may not be offered every semester. This is not a complete list of courses students can take in this focus area. Meet with an Integrated Studies Advisor to select the best courses for your academic and career goals. For course descriptions, more details on prerequisites, or a course overview, see the USU General Catalog or the USU Syllabus Tracker.

Animal & Dairy Veterinary Sciences (ADVS)

Note: Many ADVS courses are restricted to students currently in the major.

Prefix Course Credits
ADVS 3100 Equine Evaluation and Judging 3
ADVS 3200 Ethical Issues in Biotechnology 3
ADVS 3650 Live Animal and Carcass Evaluaton 3
ADVS 5900 Conceptualizing the Human Animal Bond 3

Applied Economics (APEC)

Prefix Course Credits
APEC 3010 Intro to Agricultural Economics and Agribusiness 3
APEC 3012 Intro to Natural Resource and Regional Economics 3
APEC 4010 Intermediate Microeconomics 3
APEC 4300 Agricultural Law 3
APEC 5020 Strategic Firm Management 3
APEC 5150 Advanced Agricultural Credit Analysis 3
APEC 5560 Natural Resource and Environmental Economics 3

Applied Science & Technical Education (ASTE)

Prefix Course Credits
ASTE 3030 Metal Welding Processes and Technology 3
ASTE 3050 Technical and Professional Communication (CI) 3
ASTE 3080 Compact Power Units for Agriculture and Turfgrass Applications 3
ASTE 3090 Communications in Agriculture 3
ASTE 3440 Science, Technology, and Modern Society (DSC) 3
ASTE 3600 Management of Agriculture Machinery Systems 3
ASTE 3625 Youth Development Education 3
ASTE 3710 Agricultural Machinery Hydraulic Systems and Diagnosis 3
ASTE 4100 Agricultural Structures and Environment 3
ASTE 5260 Environmental Impacts of Agricultural Systems 3
ASTE 5400 Food, Land, and People 3

Aviation (AV)

Note: Many AV courses are restricted to students currently in the major.

Prefix Course Credits
AV 3100 Technical Communication for the Global Aviation Industry 3
AV 4300 History of Aviation in America 3
AV 5760 Fundamentals of Aviation Science 3

Biology (BIOL)

Prefix Course Credits
BIOL 3010 Evolution (DSC) 3
BIOL 3020 Evolutionary Biology 3
BIOL 3030 Genetics and Society (DSC) 3
BIOL 3050 Organismal Biology with Physiology 3
BIOL 3060 Principles of Genetics 3
BIOL 3070 Computational Approaches to Biology (CI) 3
BIOL 3090 Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology 3
BIOL 3100 Bioethics (CI) 3
BIOL 3300 General Microbiology 4
BIOL 3500 Plagues, Pests, and People 3
BIOL 4000 Human Dissection 1
BIOL 4030 Communicable Disease Control 3
BIOL 4040 Fundamentals of Epidemiology 3
BIOL 4060 Exploring Animal Behavior 3
BIOL 4430 Intro to Plant Pathology 4
BIOL 4450 Neurobiology 3
BIOL 4500 Applied Entomology 3
BIOL 4540 Invertebrate Zoology 3
BIOL 4600 Advanced Human Physiology 5
BIOL 4750 Plant Physiology 3
BIOL 5110 Intro to Microscopy 1
BIOL 5160 Methods in Biotechnology: Cell Culture 3
BIOL 5210 Cell Biology 3
BIOL 5240 Virology 3
BIOL 5530 Insect Systematics and Evolution 3
BIOL 5550 Freshwater Invertebrates 3
BIOL 5560 Ornithology 3
BIOL 5570 Herpetology 3
BIOL 5580 Mammalology 3
BIOL 5640 Endocrinology 3

Biological Engineering (BENG)

Upper-division BENG courses limited to students in the Biological Engineering Major.

Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE)

Upper-division CEE courses limited to students in the Civil and Environmental Engineering Major.

Chemistry (CHEM)

Prefix Description Credits
CHEM 3000 Quantitative Analysis 3
CHEM 3060 Physical Chemistry I 3
CHEM 3070 Physical Chemistry II 3
CHEM 3510 Intermediate Inorganic Chemistry 2
CHEM 3650 Environmental Chemistry (DSC) 3
CHEM 3700 Introductory Biochemistry 3
CHEM 4800 Research Problems 1-3
CHEM 4890 Biochemistry Seminar 2
CHEM 5070 Biophysical Chemistry 3
CHEM 5100 Computational Chemistry 3
CHEM 5520 Advanced Inorganic Chemistry 3
CHEM 5700 General Biochemistry 3

Computer Science (CS)

Prefix Description Credits
CS 3200 Mobile Application Development 3
CS 3460 C++ 3
CS 4340 Computer Science Teaching Methods 3
CS 5030 High Performance Computing 3
CS 5080 Time Series Data Mining 3
CS 5250 Intro to Cloud Computing 3
CS 5510 Robot Intelligence 3
CS 5640 Reinforcement Learning Applications 3

Engineering (ENGR)

Upper-division ENGR courses are restricted to students in an Engineering Major.

Environmental Sciences (ENVS)

Prefix Course Credits
ENVS 3010 Fundamentals of Natural Resource and Environment 3
ENVS 3320 Archaeology of Climate Change (DSS) 3
ENVS 4000 Human Dimensions of Natural Resource Management 3
ENVS 4110 Human Dimensions of Wildlife Management 3
ENVS 4350 Ecological Economics 3
ENVS 4610 Foundations of Environmental Education 3
ENVS 4700 Communicating Sustainability (CI) 3
ENVS 5000 Environmental Nonprofit and Volunteer Management 3

Geology (GEO)

Prefix Description Credits
GEO 3100 Natural Disasters 3
GEO 3150 Energy in the Twenty-First Century 3
GEO 3250 Natural History of Dinosaurs 3
GEO 3300 Geology of the World's Oceans 3
GEO 3400 Communicating Geoscience 3
GEO 3440 Sedimentation and Stratigraphy 3
GEO 3600 Geomorphology 3
GEO 3800 Geoscience Workforce Techniques 3
GEO 4500 Igneous and Metamorphic Petrology 3
GEO 4870 Geospatial Analysis 3
GEO 5150 Fluvial Geomorphology 3
GEO 5410 Advanced Stratigraphy 3
GEO 5510 Groundwater Geology 3
GEO 5660 Applied Geophysics 3

Geography (GEOG)

Prefix Description Credits
GEOG 3100 Human-Environment Geography 3
GEOG 3430 Political Geography 3
GEOG 3800 Data Visualization 3
GEOG 4120 Environment and Development in Latin America (CI) 3
GEOG 4210 Geography of Utah 3
GEOG 4220 International Regional Geography 3
GEOG 4400 Natural Hazards and Society 3
GEOG 4850 Cartographic Design 3
GEOG 4860 Python Programming for GIS 3
GEOG 4870 Geospatial Analysis 3
GEOG 4920 GIS Internship 1-3

Landscape & Architectural Planning (LAEP)

Upper-division LAEP courses are restricted to students currently in the major.

Mechanical Aerospace Engineering (MAE)

MAE courses limited to students in the Mechanical Aerospace Engineering Major.

Mathematics (MATH)

Prefix Description Credits
MATH 3310 Discrete Mathematics 3
MATH 4200 Foundation of Analysis 3
MATH 4230 Applied Mathematics in Biology (QI) 3
MATH 4310 Intro to Algebraic Structures 3
MATH 4400 History of Math and Number Theory 3
MATH 4610 Fundamentals of Numberical Analysis 3
MATH 4700 Engineering Mathematics and Statistics 3
MATH 5010 Technology for Teaching Math 3
MATH 5020 Mathematical Cognition & Assessment 3
MATH 5110 Differential Geometry 3
MATH 5210 Introduction to Analysis 3
MATH 5310 Intro to Modern Algebra 3
MATH 5410 Methods of Applied Mathematics 3
MATH 5560 Actuarial Financial Mathematics 3
MATH 5570 Actuarial Math I 3

Outdoor Product Design & Development (OPDD)

Upper-division OPDD courses are restricted to students currently in the major.

Physics (PHYS)

Prefix Description Credits
PHYS 3010 Space Exploration from Earth to the Solar System (DSC/QI) 3
PHYS 3020 Great Scientists (DSC) 3
PHYS 3030 The Universe (DSC/QI) 3
PHYS 3150 Energy in the Twenty-first Century (DSC/QI) 3
PHYS 3500 Topics in Physics 1-3
PHYS 3700 Thermal Physics 3
PHYS 3710 Intermediate Modern Physics 3
PHYS 3750 Foundations of Wave Phenomena 3
PHYS 4020 Science, Art, and Music (DSC/QI) 3
PHYS 5340 Methods of Theoretical Physics I 3
PHYS 5500 Intermediate Topics in Physics 1-3
PHYS 5800 Physics Colloquium 1

Recreation Administration (RAM)

Prefix Course Credit
RAM 3000 Designing Recreation Experiences 3
RAM 3200 Evaluation of Recreation Services (QI) 3
RAM 3400 Leadership in Recreation Services 3
RAM 3900 Diverse Populations 3
RAM 4100 History of Leisure (CI) 3
RAM 4500 Management of Recreation Services 3
RAM 4600 Legal Issues and Risk Management of Recreation 3

Plant, Soils and Climate (PSC)

Prefix Course Credits
PSC 3000 Fundamentals of Soil Science 3
PSC 3100 Soils and Civilization (DSC) 3
PSC 3500 Structure and Function of Plants 3
PSC 3700 Plant Propogation 3
PSC 4000 Soil Management and Conservation 3
PSC 4700 Irrigated Soils 3
PSC 4810 Climate and Climate Change (QI/DSC) 3
PSC 5000 Environmental Instrumentation 3
PSC 5500 Environmental Land Ecosystem Climates 3
PSC 5620 Aquatic Chemistry 3

Watershed Sciences (WATS)

Prefix Description Credits
WATS 3100 Fish Diversity and Conservation 3
WATS 3600 Geomorphology 4
WATS 3700 Fundamentals of Watershed Science (CI) 3
WATS 4310 Wetland Ecology and Management 3
WATS 4490 Small Watershed Hydrology (QI) 4
WATS 4500 Ecology of Inland Waters 3
WATS 4530 Water Quality and Pollution 3
WATS 4600 Environmental Water Management 3
WATS 4930 Advanced GIS and Spatial Analysis 3
WATS 5310 Ecology and Restoration of Wetland and Riparian Plants 3
WATS 5550 Freshwater Invertebrates 3
WATS 5640 Riparian Ecology and Management 3
WATS 5650 Analysis of Fisheries Data with R 2

Wildland Resources (WILD)

Prefix Course Credits
WILD 3100 Introduction to Wildland Fire 3
WILD 4000 Principles of Rangeland Management 3
WILD 4580 Management and Manipulation of Ecological Data 3
WILD 4640 Studies in the American West 3
WILD 4990 Genetics in Conservation and Management 3
WILD 5700 Forest Assessment and Management (CI) 3
WILD 5860 Poisonous Range Plants Affecting Livestock 3