Academics (MS3)

The Master of Science in Sustainability Science degree requires students to complete a minimum of 33 credits. The program is structured around four areas, providing a clear roadmap to graduation: Core Knowledge (14 credits), Specialization (9 credits), Electives (6 credits), and Practicum (4 credits). This framework grounds students in a common understanding of sustainability while allowing them flexibility to hone expertise in their concentration of choice, and choose courses to best fit their academic interests and career aspirations.

Core Knowledge (14 Credits: 4 Courses, 2 Seminars)
​All MS3 students take an introductory course in the Fall called Perspectives on Sustainability (ECO 606). This course provides a foundational introduction to the science, methods, history, philosophy, and future of sustainability. The other three "core knowledge" courses can be taken in any semester and round out the "core breadth" element of the program. One course is chosen from each of three categories: Ecological Systems, Urban & Social Systems, and Policy & Economics. The final element of the Core Knowledge requirement is two 1-credit seminars - typically one taken in the fall and one in the spring. The seminars cover current research in the field. One that is typically offered in the fall semester is "Sustainability Science Perspectives in the Field" and involves seven field trips to observe sustainability in practice at different sites in the Pioneer Valley.

Specialization (9 credits: 3 courses)
To develop a professional-level of expertise, students develop a Specialization by taking three courses within one of five concentration areas:  

1. Urban Sustainability
2. Renewable Energy and Efficient Design 
3. Sustainable Agriculture and Food Systems
4. Water Sustainability and Climate Change
5. Environmental Quality

These concentrations frame a student’s intellectual development within a disciplinary context, while allowing students the flexibility to select courses that are individually relevant.

Electives (6 credits: 2 courses)
To continue interdisciplinary development, students take at least one course - the "breadth elective" - in a different concentration than their own. The second "free" elective course can be selected from any category in the Course List.

Practicum (4 credits: 1 course)
Finally, the capstone to the program is a 4-credit, 150-hour Practicum (internship) that applies classroom learning within a real-world, professional setting. Students can complete their Practicum with a wide array of organizations such as NGOs, businesses, government, and higher education institutions. See the practicum and alumni & outcomes pages to learn more about some of the practicum experiences our students have undertaken.

Upon completion of the program, students earn a Master of Science degree and are ready to enter the workforce and apply their knowledge, skills, and practical experience to start solving the world’s sustainability challenges.

Full Time or Part Time?
Most students choose to complete their degree requirements as an intensive 1-year program of two semesters plus a summer. Students also have the option of pursuing the program on a part-time basis and completing coursework over three or more semesters. This allows students the ability to develop additional expertise or balance their studies with outside commitments.

In addition to gaining a broad understanding of sustainability challenges and solutions, students develop specialized expertise in one of five areas. Three courses of three credits each (9 credits total) are required to be taken in your chosen specialization/concentration. There is also a requirement that students take one course from a different specialization (the "breadth elective"). There is a great deal of flexibility in choosing courses and some overlap across the specializations. The five specializations are:

Urban Sustainability
This concentration is designed for aspiring professionals interested in the sustainable growth and development of cities. This would be a good concentration for you if you are interested in green building and energy systems. Career paths include urban design, environmental consulting, renewable energy, and more. This specialization also has the opportunity to complete a dual degree with the Masters of Regional Planning. 

Sample Practicum: Climate Action Outreach Fellow in a municipality’s Office of Sustainability and Environment
Sample Job Title: Municipal Planner

Renewable Energy and Efficient Design
This concentration, offered for the first time in Fall of 2016, is designed for aspiring professionals who are drawn to the complex issues of energy systems and the central role they will play in moving towards a more sustainable future. This would be a good concentration for you if you are interested in renewable energy production, passive design, energy policies, computer modeling with GIS or building energy analysis software. A graduate with this specialization will be prepared for a myriad of careers in the growing clean energy sector, including energy consulting firms, government bodies, non-profit organizations, and more.

Sample Practicum: Solar Engineering Design Intern
Sample Job Title: Clean Energy Project Manager at a city government

Sustainable Agriculture and Food Systems
This concentration is designed for aspiring professionals who are passionate about how food is grown and the processes it goes through before it is consumed. Whether you wish to be an agricultural producer, regulate food policies, or promote global nutrition and health, this concentration provides you with all of the necessary training to pursue these and many other career paths.

Sample Practicum: Intern, Wellspring Harvest Hydroponic Greenhouse
Sample Job Title: Food Policy Analyst at a Food System Collaborative

Water Sustainability and Climate Change
This concentration is designed for aspiring professionals concerned about global climate change and how it affects water quality and availability. Students interested in watershed management, water pollution, and impacts of climate change on hydrology should choose this concentration. A graduate with this specialization will be ready for a variety of career paths with private companies, non-profits, and government organizations.

Sample Practicum: Field Research and Education Assistant at a Nature Foundation
Sample Job Title: Land Protection and Stewardship Specialist at a Land Trust

Environmental Quality

This concentration is designed for aspiring professionals focused on environmental sciences and their connection to human well-being. This would be a good concentration for you if you are interested in remediating soil and air pollution, social justice, or public health and epidemiology should pursue this concentration. A graduate with this specialization will walk away with a unique skill set that can be geared towards environmental consulting, improving and restoring brownfields and contaminated sites, disease prevention, and several other fields.

Sample Practicum: Education and Outreach Ecofellow at the Center for EcoTechnology
Sample Job Title: Operations Manager at a Solar company

The Practicum is a 150-hour professional-level internship and the capstone experience of the MS3 Program. The purpose is to provide students with career training that allows them to apply their coursework in a real-world setting, learn from practitioners and leaders in the field, and build professional experience while still in school. This experience may be an internship, fellowship, full-time job, or contract work; most students fulfil this requirement through a summer internship. Ideally, students will produce a suite of products and/or outcomes during their practicum experience that they can add to their professional portfolio in the form of a final Practicum Report. The goal is for the student to emerge with applied experience, a refined set of skills, a broadened area of expertise, and a better understanding of the type of professional opportunities they are most interested in pursuing beyond graduate school. 

Here are a sample of Synopses of Practicum experiences undertaken by MS3 students:

Planning Intern, Southwest Regional Planning Commission

Leading by Example Intern, Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources

Food Systems Project Associate, UMass Auxiliary Sustainability Dept, UMass Dining

EDF Climate Corps Fellow, Cushman and Wakefield, New York

Business Development / Communications Intern, Algorex Health Technologies

Student Intern, Clean Energy Extension, UMass Amherst

Policy Research Intern, Mass River's Alliance

Advocacy Intern with Share Our Strength, Washington D.C.

Solar Engineering Design Intern, Picktricity

Intern at Superfrau, Boston

Intern, Clean Energy Extension, UMass Amherst

MS3 graduates have undertaken practicums in a wide variety of industries and settings including:

• American Planning Association
• Cape & Islands Self-Reliance
• CISA (Community Involved in Sustaining Agriculture)
• Connecticut River Conservancy
• CREW (Communities Responding to Extreme Weather)
• Door County Land Trust, Wisconsin
• Earthship Biotecture, NM
• Environmental Health & Safety Sustainability Intern, UMass Medical School, Worcester
• Environmental League of Massachusetts Action Fund, Boston
• Farm Fresh Rhode Island
• GEI Consultants, Woburn
• Linda Loring Nature Foundation, Nantucket, MA
• Massachusetts DOER (Department of Energy Resources)
• Massachusetts Food System Collaborative
• Mayflower Wind Energy
• NOFA Mass (Northeast Organic Farming Association, Massachusetts)
• Nuestra Comida
• Office of Sustainability and Environment, City of Somerville
• Pioneer Valley Planning Commission
• Regreen Springfield
• Resonant Energy, Dorchester
• Senator Edward J. Markey’s Boston Office
• Silverstein Properties Inc, NYC
• Solect Energy
• Southwest Regional Planning Commission
• Taza Chocolate Somerville, MA
• The New Garden Society
• The Repair Association
• UNH Sustainability Fellowship
• UMass Clean Energy Extension
• VHB (Vanasse Hangen Brustlin, Inc.)
• Verdanterra
• Water Meter Retrofitting and GIS Mapping, Hinsdale, MA
• Wellspring Harvest Hydroponic Greenhouse, Indian Orchard, Springfield MA
• World Resources Institute (WRI), Washington D.C.

To build an exceptional career, students need both academic training AND an understanding of how to leverage their training into professional opportunities. As such, career development is an emphasis of our program.

As a professional degree program, MS3 offers a number of unique professional development opportunities and workshops, including:

• 2-Day Overnight Career Retreat 
• Resume and Cover Letter Workshop 
• Environmental Careers Seminar
• Sustainability in the "Real World" Seminar Series 
• MS3 Alumni Panel 
• Practicum 

These experiences help our students learn how to navigate the sustainability job market, make lasting professional connections, and grow their network of colleagues. Students also have the opportunity to attend conferences on sustainability and have access to the University’s career advising services.

The MS3 program is one of the most flexible degrees at UMass. While housed within the Department of Environmental Conservation, MS3 students can take classes across many departments including Stockbridge School of Agriculture, Regional Planning, Natural Resources Conservation, Mechanical & Industrial Engineering, Environmental Science, Architecture, and more.

In addition to one-on-one advising, the MS3 program provides a number of materials to help students plan their year of coursework. The Roadmap to Graduation helps students map out the path to achieving the 33 credits, while the approved Courselist narrows down which classes may be taken to meet a particular program requirement. Courses change each year and new courses are developed. The current course offerings can be seen in SPIRE by searching for classes using attributes like 500-level or above, "green", or specifying a department ("course subject") to narrow the results.

• Approved Course List (with fall 2025 course offerings)
• Roadmap to Graduation

Overview

The University of Massachusetts, Amherst also offers a dual degree program that can be completed in 2 years including summers and gives aspiring professionals the opportunity to earn a Master of Regional Planning (MRP) and Master of Science in Sustainability Science (MS3).

The professions of planning and sustainability science are intertwined in numerous ways. Competitive positions in government and in the private and nonprofit sectors can best be filled by individuals with technical knowledge and skills of systems analysts, consultants and planners. For example, sustainability planners in local governments often aspire to be researchers/analysts within government agencies and organizations. Conversely, sustainability analysts, especially in rapidly growing enterprises or organizations, are better positioned for success with the skills to formulate and implement plans in a municipal or regional context. 

This natural connection between the two masters programs is already reflected in the fact that there is a high level of crossover between MS3 students in the Urban Sustainability concentration taking courses in the Department of Landscape Architecture & Regional Planning (LARP) as well as MRP students in the Environmental concentration taking courses in the Department of Environmental Conservation (ECo).

Curriculum

The MS3 core curriculum is designed to provide students with a strong analytical foundation, applicable to a range of sustainability issues. Core teachings are focused on ecological systems, urban and social systems, and policy and economics. There is an additional emphasis on specializations. The MRP core focuses on combining theoretical, historical, social, political, and technical dimensions of planning practice with strong emphasis on practice through studio and service to area communities. This two+ year dual degree program offers a rich educational experience in many areas of science, management and planning, including systems analysis and implementation, ecological science, policy and planning, information technology, infrastructural development, and sustainability tools and techniques. 

Degree Requirements

Taken separately, the conventional MRP and MS3 degrees would require 48 credits and 33 credits respectively, Because of the natural synergies between the two programs, dual degree candidates are required to fulfill the coursework equivalent of 36 credits in the MRP program and 30 credits in the MS3 program, 66 total. Students will be required to complete the full core curricula of both programs. MS3 core and program elective courses will be considered as an equivalent substitute for the nine concentration credits required by the MRP program. Likewise, MRP core and elective planning courses will be accepted as fulfilling MS3 general concentration electives. Students will also fulfill the joint requirements for the MS3 practicum and MRP Thesis, Project, or 3-Course Option on a topic of relevance to both programs.

In addition to graduate programs such as the Master of Science in Sustainability Science, UMass Amherst offers students the option of pursuing a professional certificate. The Offshore Wind Professional Certification and the Graduate Certificate in Climate Change, Hazards and Green Infrastructure Planning are two such programs that can be pursued while enrolled in the masters program at UMass Amherst, potentially using the same classes to count toward both the masters degree and the certificate. Graduating with an extra professional qualification helps to position students to be highly competitive in the green job market.

Offshore Wind Professional Certificate

The Offshore Wind Professional Certificate covers the broad range of disciplines involved in the offshore wind industry, including technology and engineering, development and finance, supply chain management, marketing, environmental impact, business logistics, law, and policy. It consists of three 3-credit courses, all of which can count towards the completion of the MS3 Master’s degree:

• ECO 610: Offshore Wind Energy – Technology, Resources, Grid Integration, and Trends
• ECO 611: Offshore Wind Energy – Environmental Impacts, Siting, Permitting, and Stakeholder Engagement
• ECO 612: Offshore Wind Energy – Project Economics, Deployment, and Business Logistics

Each course features guest speakers from the industry, and many fellow students are already part of the offshore wind workforce, providing valuable insights, exposure, and connections. Completion of all courses also conveys a Graduate Certificate in offshore wind. 

More information on the Offshore Wind Professional Certificate is available here.

Climate Change, Hazards and Green Infrastructure Planning Certificate

The Graduate Certificate in Climate Change, Hazards and Green Infrastructure Planning provides students with a credential showing that they have unique skills in one of the most pressing topic areas in policy today. This is a nationally innovative program which provides the knowledge and skills to implement solutions to the resilience and climate change emergency. 

You must take two core classes, one in Planning for Climate Change, one in Green Infrastructure.  Then take three other classes in related areas. There is no limit on dual counting of certificate courses if these courses also fulfill requirements in your graduate degree program. The two core classes are on the approved MS3 course list. If the three electives you choose are also on the approved MS3 course list, you could in theory count all five classes for both the certificate and your MS3 degree.

More information on the Climate Change, Hazards and Green Infrastructure Planning Certificate is available here.