Free Sample
The Complete Guide to Becoming An Environmental Scientist and Specialist, Including Health
What you'll really do, what you'll really earn, and whether you have what it takes — before you spend a dime on a degree.
by Alumigogo Books
Chapter 1: What Does a Environmental Scientist and Specialist, Including Health Actually Do?
What You'll Actually Do, Tuesday at 9:00 A.M.
Let's get one thing out of the way: an environmental scientist and specialist, including health, is not the person who hugs trees in a national park while a camera crew films. That person is a park ranger or a filmmaker's subject. You are the person who stands in the mud in hip waders, collects a water sample in a plastic bottle, then drives it back to a lab and fills out paperwork about that sample for the next two hours. Some days are genuinely exciting — you might be on a boat sampling sediment, or flying a drone over a former industrial site, or in a courtroom explaining your findings to a judge. Many days are not. You are a data collector, an analyst, a report writer, and sometimes a literal voice of warning to people who would rather not hear what you have to say.
The core of this job is figuring out what is in the environment, what state it is in, and what it means for human health or ecosystems. You measure pollutants in soil, water, air, and even buildings. You assess sites — a piece of land proposed for a new housing development, a decommissioned factory, a farm, a wetland — and determine whether it is safe. You tell your employer, your client, or the government what the risks are, and you propose ways to