New Jersey is a state that is no stranger to questions of environmental sustainability. We have both heavily urbanized areas and regions such as the Pine Barrens that remain largely undeveloped, a yin and yang of growth and preservation that need to be balanced.
New challenges, such as sea level rise and deadly heat waves coming with the inevitable onslaught of global climate change, are on the doorstep as well. In between dealing with the fallout of our industrialized past and our uncertain future, things can seem, well, pretty unsustainable here sometimes.
But that’s where college-educated sustainability experts come into play. With the right degree and the right motivation, you and others like you can join the forces working to turn our state into a livable, sustainable place for generations to come.
Sustainability Jobs Available in New Jersey With the Right Degree
New Jersey has plenty of job opportunities in fields where sustainability is an inseparable element, many of them at high levels and with major multinational corporations.
Director of supplier sustainability, corporate sustainability manager, and national sustainability manager positions aren’t hard to find, with major companies like Johnson & Johnson and Novo Nordisk.
An often overlooked aspect of sustainability that seems strong in New Jersey is in the cosmetics industry, where businesses like L’Oréal and International Flavors and Fragrances provide a steady demand for sustainability experts.
Master’s in Sustainability Available Through Schools in New Jersey
New Jersey students are blessed with a wide variety of educational institutions offering master’s degree in sustainability fields.
Agriculture
It just wouldn’t be a list of top New Jersey schools without Rutgers on it. The Master of Business and Science with a concentration in Global Agriculture provides you with knowledge of international agriculture and sustainability practices while offering a strong background in production and management in the field.
Architecture
In architecture, New Jersey has several strong master’s programs, among them the one-year Master of Science in Architecture with a concentration in Sustainable Design from the New Jersey Institute of Technology. As a brand new offering, this comes in both pre and post-professional tracks to accommodate architects at any stage of their career.
Sustainable Development
Ramapo College, in scenic Mahwah, offers a great general degree through their Master of Arts in Sustainability Studies. A cohort-based program that nonetheless works to customize the content based on each individual student’s goals and experience, the MASS will prepare you for change management in diverse settings to help sustainability flourish in any area of practice.
Policy
Montclair State University can build up your policy credentials in sustainability through their Master of Science in Sustainability Science. Although it’s got a hard edge of technical studies, the Sustainability Leadership concentration goes further by offering you the tools to turn technology and science into actionable policy.
Technology
The Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken offers a Master’s in Environmental Engineering at one of the premier private research universities in the New York area. With full or part-time and thesis and non-thesis options, you get a lot of options when it comes to scheduling and how you conduct your studies. And with three concentrations and four different focus areas, you can zoom in on exactly your area of interest in sustainability technology.
Sustainability Bachelor Degree Programs in New Jersey
You may be getting excited that New Jersey offers a lot of choices for master’s degrees in sustainability, but don’t get ahead of yourself: before you can get a master’s, you’re going to have to earn a bachelor’s degree to prepare for those advanced studies.
Kean University, in Union, offers you one route to get ready for all those advanced degree options: a Bachelor of Science in Sustainability Science that takes you through the gamut of sustainability issues. It includes ecosystems, interactions between global, social, and human systems, the chemistry and math behind environmental science, and offers opportunities to conduct research in state-of-the-art labs and field locations around the world.
Online Sustainability Degrees Offered Through Schools in New Jersey
It’s always nice to have online options no matter what your course of study. So it’s great that New Jersey schools like Teaneck’s Fairleigh Dickinson University have stepped up to the plate with programs like their online Master of Business Administration.
The FDU MBA offers what it calls Discipline Enhancing Courses in Managing Sustainability and Finance Decisions for Sustainable Enterprises to help you get your head around business operations in the 21stcentury. With the option to tackle course content from anywhere, at any time, it’s a flexible solution to help you stay ahead of schedule, and ahead of the pack.
