Online Colleges with Degrees in Sustainability: Oregon State University - Online Colleges with Degrees in Sustainability

As part of our ongoing effort to identify, evaluate and publicize online degree programs in sustainability, today we will be looking at Oregon State University E-Campus. Oregon State University E-Campus is an online college that awards a degrees and certificates in Sustainable Natural Resources. Our information comes from a variety of sources, but all evaluations and opinions are our own.

Online College

The Oregon State University E-Campus is OSU's distance and extension learning program. OSU is based in Corvallis, Oregon and all E-Campus students receive the same transcript and same diploma as an on-campus attendee. Oregon State is part of the University of Oregon System, and as a Pac-12 Conference member, adheres to the same rigorous academic standards as the other Pac-12 state schools based in California, Washington, Arizona and more.

OSU Ecampus is consistently ranked among the nation's best providers of online education for the quality and strength of our programs. In each of the last four years, Ecampus has been ranked in the top 25 nationally by several independent companies –including 12th for the 2013-14 school year by SuperScholar, which bases its rankings on "degree selection diversity … market credibility and prestige, academic quality, student support, and student satisfaction."

Online Degree Programs

Graduate Certificate in Sustainable Natural Resource Management (18 Credit)

Descriptions

From their website:

Now you can earn a graduate certificate in Sustainable Natural Resources from Oregon State University, a research institution renowned for its expertise in natural resources. This 18-credit online certificate is designed for all students, especially company, industry or agency employees who desire training in solving complex sustainability problems.

Students complete an integrated course of study in a dynamic learning community, under the mentorship of professionals, to design workable solutions for complex natural resource issues of local, state, regional, national and international importance.

Source: http://ecampus.oregonstate.edu/online-degrees/graduate/sustainability/

Pros

The Oregon State University's Department of Forestry, the sponsor of this certificate program, is ranked 8th in the world in an international survey of over 3,000 colleges. Oregon is also geographically positioned to benefit from their proximity to the Pacific Ocean, the Cascade Mountain Range and the Willamette Valley agricultural region.

Cons

Students looking for a degree in energy or corporate sustainability may want to look elsewhere, as this program deals almost exclusively with Natural Resource Management with sustainability as the backdrop. This will, of course, help you to break into a number of fields in which natural resource management is an issue, but may not help as much as, say, the Penn State or University of Denver programs in the private sector.