SEATTLE —
University of Washington senior Sarah Hensley knows exactly how she wants to spend her career after she graduates with a degree in marine biology.
“As we all know, climate change is occurring, and I am really interested in understanding how these changes we’re seeing in our environmental conditions are influencing the biological components of our systems,” said Hensley.
She’s part of a new generation of students who share a similar mentality. Julia Parrish, the associate dean of academics in the College of the Environment at the University of Washington, has witnessed this trend firsthand.
“Even over the last four years, the undergraduate population has increased by 50%, so the growth has been explosive,” said Parrish.
Parrish said she was part of the creation of UW’s College of Environment about 15 years ago. Leaders at the college realized their environmental programs sprinkled throughout other colleges and made the decision to bring them together in a unified way.
Since then, their numbers have skyrocketed, and they’re not alone.
On the other side of the state, Washington State University’s School of the Environment grew from 428 students in 2019 to 525 students in 2023, a 23% increase.
At Oregon State, students pursuing a B.S. in environmental sciences grew from 466 in 2019 to 752 in 2024, a 61% increase.
The University of Idaho’s Environmental Science Department reports similar numbers of undergraduate students in the last few years but said Master’s and Ph.D. students have grown from 79 people in 2019 to 163 people in 2023, a 106% increase.
Parrish said she hears many reasons for students choosing this career, but there’s one common theme.
“One is saving the world. And with today’s climate problems, global warming is something we hear about every day in the news. There's just a lot of weight on the shoulders of students coming into college today to try to fix something that their elders are responsible for,” she said.
Hensley said she agrees with that mentality.
“That's definitely an energy I feel among the younger population given that we’ve been confronted with these issues growing up and we’ve had these in our everyday lives as a constant reminder, you know climate change is happening,” she said, adding that her desire to study it and to fix it is what drives her.
“The more we understand these issues and the more research that comes out on these issues, the more we can facilitate these conversations, I think. So ultimately, I think the younger generation has tremendous potential to drive us in this direction that allows us to address these issues,” said Hensley.
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