Bachelor of Environmental Science

The environmental science degree at SCU is inseparable from its geography: first and second-year units run at the Lismore campus, but students move to the National Marine Science Centre in Coffs Harbour for specialist third-year units delivered in intensive mode, covering oceanography, marine ecology, coral reef ecology and marine pollution. That's a genuinely unusual arrangement (a dedicated marine science facility used for intensive block teaching rather than folded into a generic on-campus environmental science curriculum), and it means students get hands-on field and lab time at a research centre most environmental science degrees can't offer.

The degree sits within a broader Bachelor of Science framework at SCU that also covers agriculture and earth systems specialisations, so environmental science students share early coursework (ecology, ecosystem regeneration, resource management, environmental modelling) with peers heading into agricultural or marine-specific tracks before diverging in later years.

Graduates come out with a mix of terrestrial and coastal environmental competencies: useful for roles spanning land management, regional council environmental planning, and marine or coastal conservation work along the NSW north coast and beyond.