The College of Forestry and Conservation's Forestry degree prepares students to work as a professional forester or natural resource manager.
With a forestry degree, you can work as a timber manager, forest planner, fire specialist, forest ranger or as a range or soil conservationist.
Our courses will teach you to use: Satellite imagery, Geographic Information Systems and state-of-the-art computer systems and models. You will spend a large part of your career working outdoors, with other natural resource professionals and with both the public and private landowners.
For students interested in:
The Parks, Tourism, and Recreation Management Degree provides the foundation for a promising future working in some of the world’s most beautiful places; graduates find employment opportunities in the public, private, and nonprofit sectors.
Resource Conservation integrates social and natural sciences to address real world environmental challenges. This undergraduate major prepares students for the diverse opportunities that now exist in environmental conservation, natural resource management, and sustainable livelihoods and communities.
Students can select from the following areas of study — ecology, international conservation, range management and grassland ecology, community conservation, watershed hydrology, environmental policy and planning, soil science, natural resource economics, or wilderness studies — or work with a faculty advisor to design their own program.
Ecological restoration is one of the most rapidly growing areas of employment in natural resource management. The Wildland Restoration degree provides students with an in-depth understanding of the principles of restoration ecology, as well as hands-on experience planning and implementing restoration projects. Graduates from the Wildland Restoration program will have the knowledge and skills necessary to meet the complex challenges of restoring degraded ecosystems. The degree also fulfills civil service requirements (for employment with the federal government) as well as prerequisites for graduate school in the biological sciences.
The University of Montana's Climate Change Studies (CCS) minor offers one of the nation's first undergraduate degree programs devoted to the challenges and opportunities global climate change presents. The minor in Climate Change Studies combines rigorous training in sciences with coursework in ethics and policy to offer students a unique, multidisciplinary understanding of climate change. This interdisciplinary minor will prepare students to understand the science and policy associated with climate change, and involve them in developing potential solutions.
The Wilderness and Civilization program is designed to provide students, at or beyond the sophomore level, with a broad interdisciplinary introduction to the subject of wilderness, focusing on the multi-faceted values that wild lands hold for civilized society. The intent is to help students become thoughtful, effective participants in public decisions concerning wilderness issues. The program is not intended as a professional land management qualification, although many students supplement their professional education through this program. A special feature is that students develop a sense of community by participating as a group in an intensive package of courses and field experiences. Students who complete the Wilderness and Civilization program become eligible for the wilderness studies minor.
A minor in Wildland Fire Sciences & Management will help you: use fire as a resource management tool; improve your understanding of the role of fire on the land; and pursue a career in fire science or management. The minor supplements any of the College's Bachelor's degrees. The minor is part of our Wildland Fire Sciences and Management Program. The fire minor combines hands-on experiences with the study of fire ecology and management, weather, climate, measurements, fuels, and policy. You'll develop skills and knowledge necessary to compete successfully for professional fire jobs, pursue graduate studies, be a leader in natural resource planning, and apply new tools and technology to solve problems.
The Wildland Restoration minor is designed for students majoring in fields other than restoration ecology, especially those focusing on natural resources, journalism, the social sciences, and law. It is designed to provide students with a basic understanding of ecology and ecological restoration.
See description for the major above.
The Certificate in GIS Sciences and Technologies is designed to provide students with broad exposure to the principles, technologies, and applications of geographic information systems (GIS). Many government and business sector careers require the employee to have a good working knowledge of GIS and related technologies. A student who has earned the Certificate will have a good understanding in general GIS theory and will possess the knowledge and skills to acquire, process, analyze, and properly display geographic data. This program is a complement to an existing major at The University of Montana-Missoula or as a complement to a bachelor’s degree obtained at another university.
With a degree in