The best earth sciences liberal arts colleges are those with rich histories of influence, proven through the work produced by the program’s faculty and alumni. Beyond demonstrating scholarly impact in the field, the best earth sciences degree programs maximize your opportunities to interact with outstanding earth sciences faculty.
A bachelor’s degree in earth sciences is an excellent starting point for a career in meteorology, environmental conservation, renewable energy, and many other innovative fields. As an earth sciences major, you’ll study the Earth, its atmosphere, the materials and substances that compose them, and the processes that produce weather patterns, climate shifts, geological events, and more. Your earth sciences degree will incorporate four primary sub-disciplines–geology, meteorology, oceanography, and astronomy, as well as foundational courses in subjects such as mineralogy, climatology, hydrology, paleontology, agriculture, conservation, and preservation. The best schools for earth sciences are those which are regionally accredited, which offer a full array of earth sciences concentrations, and which give you the chance to work with the best and most influential professors and classmates.
Scientific careers tend to involve specialized, challenging, and well-paying jobs, and earth sciences is no different. Whether as an environmental scientist, geologist, or atmospheric scientist, landing a job in a branch of earth sciences can lead to a big paycheck.
Whether studying minerals, crystals, and magma deep within the Earth, or measuring patterns of atmospheric change, earth science majors lead interesting careers full of discovery, investigation, and problem-solving opportunities. Today, top influencers in earth sciences are bringing new light to volcanology, climate change, sustainability, and much more.
Back to TopEarth sciences is a great major if you aspire to positively impact the earth and environment. This versatile degree gives you the opportunity to contribute to advances in sustainability, alternative energies, environmental conservation, agriculture, food production, and more. Your degree in earth sciences could put you in a position to produce findings, technology and innovations that could solve some of the world’s greatest challenges from global hunger to climate change.
Back to TopOnce you’ve declared your major in earth sciences, you will likely be required to complete a set of core courses in a number of STEM-related subject areas. While your concentration will give you a chance to choose from a wide range of highly-specialized earth sciences electives, there are several common courses that most earth sciences majors will be required to take, including:
With such a wide range of specialization options, earth science majors have an equally wide selection of career paths. Keep in mind, your major specialization largely determines your professional specialization, so if, for instance, you want to work as a geologist, we would recommend specializing in geology; if you plan to become a climate scientiest, specialize in meteorology. With the right focus, your earth sciences major can lead to a wide range of career opportunities, including these top jobs:
Related: How to Major in Earth Sciences
In pursuing a bachelor’s degree, you will need to choose between three kinds of schools: research universities, liberal arts colleges, and online colleges.
Research universities are colleges and universities whose faculty are active in research and publishing. These schools offer a wide array of doctoral programs, especially in the sciences. They tend to be big, with tens of thousands of students.
Do you prefer a larger university setting, such as largest public university in your state? Research universities are typically big, offering degrees in many different disciplines. Is a big high-powered research environment the thing for you. If not, you should think about a liberal arts college. In deciding on an undergraduate institution, ask yourself what sort of environment will best help you to be happy and excel.
Often referred to as “teaching colleges” liberal arts colleges put a premium on undergraduate studies and offers a broad range of subjects for students to study. A college of liberal arts typically provides smaller class sizes, more direct engagement with professors, and, most importantly, the opportunity to sample a wide range of subject areas on the way to a bachelor’s degree.
Online colleges are typically the same colleges and universities you could attend in-person, but for certain degree programs the college or unviersity has made the degree programs available to be completed online. For over 5 million students, online degree programs allow students to earn their degrees in the most flexible format available. Online degrees are as respected as the on-campus degress you could earn from the same schools. There’s usually no disctinction between the two degrees, and your degree and transcript will not say that the degree was earned online. Online degree programs are offered by a vast majority of colleges and universities, and the number of offering continues to grow. Whehter you are searching for an associate, bachelor’s, master’s, or doctorate, there’s a good chance you can earn your degree online from a respectable online college.
If you interested in an online bachelor’s degree, check out what the best online colleges offer, or search our online degrees for the exact program that interests you. In either case, you will find well respected colleges and universities that offer online degrees.
Back to TopIf you think a research university may be a better fit for you, see our ranking of the best research universities for a bachelor’s in earth sciences.
The people affiliated with a school are ultimately what make it great. This is why we rank the best colleges and universities based on what we call “Influence”.
The influence of a college or university is based on the schools’ top academic influencers related to the discipline in this ranking. We track the influence of faculty and alumni affialiate with these school counting not only the publicaitons and citations of the school’s affiliated people, but we also consider the overall web presense of the faculty and alumni. The greater the citations, authority of web links, web searches, and pageviews, the greater the individuals’ influence. Those combined make up the departments’ influence in the field of study. We believe tracking the academic influence of the people affiliated with a school is the best indicator of academic excellence.
If you are serious about finding the best colleges and universities, you should be asking where the most influential professors are teaching, and whether their graduates themselves are advancing the school’s reputation for academic excellence. Most ranking sites rely on an opaque combination of reputation surveys and misuesed performance metrics. Influence, as measured by our InfluenceRanking engine, provides a ranking that is more insulated from manipulation, and more reflective of real-world educational outcomes.
Tuition + fees
$57K
Acceptance
9%
Graduation
94%
Student body
2K
Median SAT/ACT
1465/33
Pomona College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$60K
Acceptance
22%
Graduation
94%
Student body
3K
Median SAT/ACT
1445/33
Middlebury College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$56K
Acceptance
9%
Graduation
97%
Student body
2K
Median SAT/ACT
1460/33
Swarthmore College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$61K
Acceptance
12%
Graduation
95%
Student body
2K
Median SAT/ACT
1415/32
Amherst College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$60K
Acceptance
15%
Graduation
96%
Student body
2K
Median SAT/ACT
1480/33
Williams College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$58K
Acceptance
9%
Graduation
95%
Student body
2K
Bowdoin College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$58K
Acceptance
13%
Graduation
92%
Student body
1K
Median SAT/ACT
1435/32
Claremont McKenna College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$61K
Acceptance
20%
Graduation
94%
Student body
3K
Median SAT/ACT
1445/32
Wellesley College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$62K
Acceptance
27%
Graduation
91%
Student body
3K
Median SAT/ACT
1415/32
Colgate University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$10K
Acceptance
38%
Graduation
83%
Student body
21K
Median SAT/ACT
1340/29
California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$62K
Acceptance
14%
Graduation
88%
Student body
2K
Colorado College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$60K
Acceptance
21%
Graduation
94%
Student body
2K
Median SAT/ACT
1450/32
Carleton College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$58K
Acceptance
17%
Graduation
83%
Student body
1K
Pitzer College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Acceptance
20%
Graduation
86%
Student body
1K
Median SAT/ACT
1305/27
United States Coast Guard Academy’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$61K
Acceptance
39%
Graduation
93%
Student body
2K
Median SAT/ACT
1415/31
Macalester College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$59K
Acceptance
14%
Graduation
92%
Student body
<1K
Bates College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$63K
Acceptance
25%
Graduation
88%
Student body
2K
Median SAT/ACT
1445/32
Vassar College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$61K
Acceptance
10%
Graduation
90%
Student body
2K
Median SAT/ACT
1450/32
Colby College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$61K
Acceptance
18%
Graduation
93%
Student body
1K
Median SAT/ACT
1460/33
Haverford College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$59K
Acceptance
25%
Graduation
93%
Student body
2K
Median SAT/ACT
1430/33
Washington and Lee University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$60K
Acceptance
18%
Graduation
91%
Student body
2K
Median SAT/ACT
1445/33
Hamilton College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$60K
Acceptance
35%
Graduation
86%
Student body
3K
Median SAT/ACT
1380/31
Oberlin College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$60K
Acceptance
38%
Graduation
88%
Student body
4K
Median SAT/ACT
1342/30
Bucknell University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$58K
Acceptance
35%
Graduation
88%
Student body
1K
Median SAT/ACT
1411/31
Scripps College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
If you want to know more about Earth sciences, then check out our related content:
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