Ep. 86 - What are the Geography and Environmental Studies majors?

In Episode 86 of the CSUSB Advising Podcast, Matt Markin chats with Dr. Yolonda Youngs, associate professor within the Department of Geography and Environmental Studies! Dr. Youngs discusses both the Bachelor of Arts in Geography and the Bachelor of Arts in Environmental Studies, career options, what students are learning in their classes, and more!

Check out the Department of Geography & Environmental Studies website!

Subscribe to the CSUSB Advising Podcast on Apple, Spotify, and more!

Follow us on social media:

Instagram - @csusbadvising
Tik Tok - @csusbadvising
YouTube - @csusbadvising

https://csusbadvising.buzzsprout.com/

Transcript

Matt Markin  
Hey Yotes. Welcome back to another episode of the CSUSB Advising Podcast. My name is Matt Markin, an academic advisor here at Cal State, San Bernardino. Today, we're learning more about two majors offered here at CSUSB, and those would be the Bachelor of Arts and Geography, and also the Bachelor of Arts in Environmental Studies. And to help us unpack both of these majors, we welcome our guest today, and that is Dr. Yolonda Youngs, Associate Professor within the Department of Geography and Environmental Studies. Dr. Youngs, welcome.

Dr. Yolonda Youngs  
thank you. Thanks for having me. It's great to have this opportunity to talk to you and hopefully some future students. 

Matt Markin  
I'm definitely excited for this interview. So we usually throw the first question out to you regarding to tell us a little bit about yourself. What was your path in higher ed?

Dr. Yolonda Youngs  
Yeah, my path was typical in some ways for a geographer, but not typical in some ways for other academics, but maybe one that some students can relate to, that might be listening to this in that I started in one major as my undergraduate. I was in anthropology and actually archeology, and that was I ended up graduating with archeology, did a lot of field work, and became a contract archeologist for a while, and then I took off, not just one or two years, but 10 years, and I jumped into an entirely different profession, which was mostly outdoor recreation, tourism and wilderness guiding on rivers around the Western United States, But I spent a lot of time in national parks, and so that is my specialty. Now as a faculty member, I went back and got my master's degree in geography, and then my PhD in geography at Montana State and then Arizona State, and then started on my path as a professor. So I took some time off, which I know some of our youths do sometimes, and I came back, and I'm very, very glad I did it gave me that timeway gave me extra vision and an extra drive and perspective, but delighted to be in the program And geographers typically do that we have incredibly diverse backgrounds. We don't always start with the same major that we end up in, and our discipline is so broad that students who are interested in physical sciences or cultural social sciences, and then, of course, we have geospatial technologies and computerized mapping with GIS. We we have a big umbrella, so it's a it's nice to be part of that.

Matt Markin  
Yeah, and it seems like you've had a fantastic adventure thus far, and and I'm glad that you talked about mentioning that you had taken time off, and it is okay to take the time off. It is okay to switch majors. We try and we learn new things, and we have new interest, and we know we eventually find our path.

Dr. Yolonda Youngs  
And you know it can be scary to take time off. We can get, you know, maybe advice from parents and friends and all kinds of things. But I always tell my students, just stick to your dreams. Stick to what you really are interested in, and you will find it. And you know, for me, national parks and more broadly, protected areas really became a guiding light. And I do work, you know, across the western United States, and I have national projects, and I do international work as well, in protected areas. And I stuck with that vision even when I wasn't so sure about the classes I was taking. I took a lot of introductory courses in Geography and Environmental Studies, and eventually I found the ones that really sung to me, you know, and I stayed with those. So I hope, I hope our students will do that too? 

Matt Markin  
Yes, very much so. And you know, let's say a student is applying to CSUSB and they're having to look through different majors of what to choose, or it's a current student at CSUSB that's thinking about maybe changing majors, and they look through the different list of majors, and they see Geography, they see Environmental Studies. How would you describe those to students?

Dr. Yolonda Youngs  
I would describe them as, I mean, we have a lot of different classes, so I'm trying to think of some arching terms to combine all of those. But you know, our major, our majors, our degree, our two degrees, really seem to work for students who are interested in the environment, in more broadly, conservation of, you know, natural resources. So if they're interested in rivers or air quality, land, what we call land use, you know who owns the land and how it's managed. You know students who are in. Interested in working in parks or working in biosphere reserves, working with vegetation, water resources, all kinds of different things. Those students really tend to find, you know, lots of great class. We have lots of great classes, but I think those work for those kind of interests. If you're interested in how the earth works. I know we share that with earth sciences and geology as well, but we have great classes in physical geography and geomorphology, and those are particularly useful for all of us living in San Bernardino in Southern California, if you're interested in earthquakes or sometimes our air quality as well, as you know, flooding and again, you know, water quality, coastal and marine resources. We're a department who really explores those topics. We teach them at introductory levels. You can get a little taste, and then you could take upper division courses if you become more interested and more specific. And a really great thing is that we get students outside. So not only do you take field trips, but you get the opportunity to actually meet real live. You know conservation managers, people who are water district managers. You know people who are working to monitor earthquake activity, people who are really in, literally in the field, you know, and that's great for networking for students, and also to really help you see, like, Okay, this, this could be my job maybe someday. And I think, I think that's a really great part of our majors. We have those experiential learning opportunities and internships. And like I said, many of our courses include some sort of field element, but we also have a lot of courses that give you those technical skills that you'll also need on the job as well.

Matt Markin  
Actually, I really like that. They have that learning aspect to it, of you can actually kind of apply that theory and put it into practice a little bit Exactly, yeah, yeah. Because even, like, you know, there's might be some degrees where it's just strictly, just go to class and, you know, you have the lecture. And in this case, it's okay, I'm going to learn these things, but then I'm going to meet others, like you said. You get the networking opportunities, experiential learning opportunities, and so that can also maybe help students realize, yeah, this is maybe the area I want to go into.

Dr. Yolonda Youngs  
Yeah, yeah, exactly. And, you know, we pride ourselves as a, as a, you know, we offer two degrees, right? And the environmental studies and geography, but as a department, we're all, you know, scholars, teachers combined as well. We We pride ourselves on giving students the skills and the content to feel comfortable in lab settings. Those could be indoors or outdoors. We have a lot of field labs as well, as well as being comfortable in technical labs teaching, for example, geographic information systems, basically a form of computerized mapping, and these just wonderful spatial data sets and database managers, as well as going into the field, actually sampling field data, you know, getting air quality or water quality, or, you know, land samples or vegetation samples. I do a lot of Habitat Monitoring in my work, but also archives, too. For those students, you know, I occasionally get students who are really interested in the Environment and Conservation fields, but maybe they're not so much of a, you know, outdoors person. However, you might want to say that we have a lot of policy classes as well. We have great within our geography major, we have really great social, cultural, economic geography for students who maybe want to lean a little bit more on the social sciences side and work with geography as well as maybe environmental policy, so you can become adept at, as we say, the lab, the field and the achive.

Matt Markin  
Now let's say you have a student that maybe they're interested in both, but you know, they're like, Well, should I do one or the other? Find that with both the geography major and environmental studies major, that is there a lot of overlap, or would one student benefit more doing geography, the BA in geography versus the BA in environmental studies?

Dr. Yolonda Youngs  
Yeah, that's a great question. You know, I think our students will overlap a little bit, certainly, when you're getting started, you know, those, those first and second year classes you take, we very intentionally make those broader, you know, thematically. So for example, I teach environmental studies, we have a wonderful environment and society class, and they, each of those classes sort of touch on a variety of larger, you know, shall we say, themes in conservation work. It could be forests or, you know, coastal marine resources, whatever. But. And then as you move along, you start to narrow in. And then you really have to decide, you know, do I want to commit to the, you know, Environmental Studies side or the geography side? So I think many of our students take those initial classes, and hopefully are thinking about, Okay, what, what parts of these classes do I really enjoy more than others, we emphasize methods. That's a big part for geographers is the methods that you use and the type of data you're collecting, and that can nudge you sort of one way or the other in your classes. And we really encourage our students to, like I said, take classes that are experiential, that give you a little field work, or at least the opportunity to see case studies in action, if you will. So maybe you know how our city councils governed. How is census data collected, as well as you know going out to our campus backyard, which includes the San Andreas Fault and we have the wonderful land lab that's just right behind our campus, our faculty use that for a variety of studies as well. So I think, think that helps students, hopefully, as they move along, to start off with sort of those broader classes, and then as they find those areas that they're more interested in that'll guide them. And of course, you know, as faculty, we're here to help guide them as well, if they're leaning more towards geography or more towards environmental studies.

Matt Markin  
And I'm sure you've gotten this question a lot, and that's the career question, and you've kind of talked a little bit about it as well already, but can you speak to like, different types of career options maybe a student might be going into whether they're doing geography or environmental studies?

Dr. Yolonda Youngs  
Yeah, I actually think about this a lot. I teach some of the classes as well that hopefully are useful for students, especially, not only the first few years, but the last few years. So a lot of our Environmental Studies students, we have a wonderfully strong alumni network, I'm delighted to say, and our students will go into being forest managers. They'll work with the San Bernardino, the US Forest Service. With San Bernardino, we have students who go into water policy and water science, so they're working with some of our water districts around here, we have students who go on to work with the California state park system. Also, you know, we have wonderful conservation we have so many great conservation organizations around here. So the Inland Empire Resource Conservation District there's, there's a number of other sort of regional districts like that. So we have students working basically all around campus and all around the Inland Empire region, as well as up into Northern California. And, of course, students who go out of state to work in in those kinds of those kinds of fields.

Matt Markin  
And you know, let's say a student is they're on the fence of declaring geography, or they're on defense of declaring environmental studies. You know, maybe they're in a major right now and they're like, I want to switch, or they're undeclared or undecided, and are now wanting to, you know, make that step to declare. But just haven't, you know, jumped in with both feet. Any advice you have for that type of student?

Dr. Yolonda Youngs  
Yeah, that's, gosh, that's another great question. I would say. I know sometimes for students, it could be a little scary, but come and talk to us as faculty. We all are really passionate in our department about our fields. We all have our specialty research and teaching areas, but we're all, you know, comfortable and happy to talk about the majors. And when students come to me, I get this question quite a bit of, you know, I take a taken a few of these classes and a few of these, and I'm not sure which way to go, you know, I asked them to think about maybe a well, certainly think about classes they've taken with us, and then think about a favorite project. Just, just gut reaction. What was a favorite project you did in one of those class? You know? Class, you know, it could be a paper, or, you know, maybe some, you know, some sort of experiential learning, or maybe even a field class or something. And then what did you like about that, in terms of, again, we emphasize methods, but also what sort of content there, what, what got you excited? And then my final question usually is, you know, I don't want to say the terrifying, where will you be in five years, right? But instead, maybe think about, you know, if you could have a dream job, you don't say the exact title, but what kind of things do you want to do with your degree? And then I try to really encourage students, if even we have those kind of conversations and they're like, oh, I don't know, you know, both things sound pretty good. I say, you know, a great thing to do is, you know, of course, if you can get an internship or something like that, that's wonderful. But also just go out on the weekend and volunteer with an organization that does. Something kind of similar, or maybe exactly what you want to do. And you know, the downside is that, you know, it's often unpaid, whatever you might volunteer for, but in that time, you know you could just do, you know, I had a student who just did a Saturday beach cleanup for one of the coastal resiliency groups and one of the coastal marine research areas, and that time really helped him, I think, to find that this was a feel he really wanted to go into. I don't know if he was wants to be doing beach cleanups, per se, but you know that time gives you the chance to experience the activity. You get to network with people who work in that organization. You can ask them, how'd you get your start and, you know, and what kind of classes did you take to get into the job that you're in now? So I really value those kind of opportunities. So I usually say, you know, if our conversation isn't guiding you enough, come back. You can always email me. You'd always chat with me. But, you know, maybe think about going out and volunteering with and just contact the organization say, Hey, I would like to come out on a Saturday or Sunday. And a lot of organizations will, of course, advertise. You know, hey, we have a volunteer day. I mean, we're, you know, here we are on Earth Day or Earth Day week. And you know, for us who are in environmental studies and geography. This is a great week to celebrate all the wonderful opportunities out there. Again. You know, in California, we're so lucky. We have great opportunities for students who are interested in conservation geography or environmental studies. So yeah, encourage, encourage the conversation with a professor, although I know it's a little scary, it's always really helpful. And, you know, maybe going out trying a little volunteer time too.

Matt Markin  
Yeah. And I would imagine there's probably a good chance that, you know, if someone's willing to volunteer, and they're asking an organization, you know, why would they say no to that?

Dr. Yolonda Youngs  
Well, that's the thing. You know, it's the downside is you may not get paid. You probably won't get paid for the day, right? But the the also the upside, not only, you know, do you get the networking and get the experience, but it's, it's really easy for an employer to say, sure, you know, come on out. You know, the only thing sometimes for them is, of course, they have to think of liability. So depends on what the day is. But again, a lot of organizations purposely structure volunteer days to be safe, quite frankly, for the public to take. So it could just be, you know, go out and help with a beach cleanup, or it could be help us with removing some invasive species, some plants. You know, it could be just going out and maybe helping with a public day where they just need someone to kind of work the booths and welcome people to an event. Those are all just terrific opportunities, and again, relatively, hopefully easy for the organization to offer as well. 

Matt Markin  
Now, do you find that there's any misconceptions that one might have when they either hear, generally, hear geography or environmental studies, or if, if someone's thinking about the one of those two majors?

Dr. Yolonda Youngs  
Yeah, you know, boy, that's tough. Because, because I'm, I'm a professor at it, I think there's just such a clear idea here. But I think there could be misperceptions about, you know, maybe geography to one of the things. Sometimes people say, Oh, geez, isn't it just all mapping, right? Hasn't everything been Matt and, you know, maybe environmental studies, you know, I don't know. Maybe people just aren't interested in environment or maybe they just don't know environmental topics and what specifically that might mean. And you know, to all that, I say, you know, there's a variety of ways things we could talk about, but majors that do well for our two degrees, and students who enjoy our classes, not always, but oftentimes, are visual thinkers and spatial thinkers. So you know, forget about the has something been mapped or not? I mean, there's certainly plenty more maps that can be made in this world of a variety of things. But it's the more exciting part is thinking about processes, like Earth processes, you know, why do earthquakes happen? Why do rivers flow the way they do? And also thinking about, again, visual thinking. You know, I'm, I'm a very visual thinker. A lot of my colleagues are as well. So if students find that they could think through things better, if they can picture it or visualize it, you know that that's a good key. And you know, thinking spatially as well. What those relationships are between different objects, different places, all that stuff is is very helpful, but I think it's just always good to just at least take one course and check us out.

Matt Markin  
That's for sure. And then last question, are there any resources available to students to through your department?

Dr. Yolonda Youngs  
You mean, like on the website or...

Matt Markin  
Website, or, you know, if it's for students to meet with faculty within the department, anything to highlight?

Dr. Yolonda Youngs  
Yeah, we have, you know, we are a department that usually has a booth set up for, you know, various events on campus, on, you know, Homecoming, which I know is kind of far off, and we certainly, you know, take part in various spring events. Many of our students are involved with, and our department certainly engages with and supports the coyote garden, which is here on campus. So that's a great way to meet some of our current and I believe, some of our past students as well, and also to kind of see some of our work right here on campus. We, like I said, some of our classes offer field experience where you don't have to, you know, if you want. We offer things where you drive all over the place, and you go all kinds of places. But also, we use the land Lab, which is located just right behind campus, so it's, you know, that's a really nice thing that we connect with. In our department, we have a student group sages, which is our student activity group. And they have a variety of events, from volunteer days that they work with organizations to just social events. I think they even have done movie nights, you know, things like that, that. And that's a great way to get to know the department, at least our department culture, as well. And like I said, you know, we offer a variety of field trips, and those are not always just for our upper division major classes. You know, some of our classes are more open to a variety of disciplines. Those are offered as well. So, for example, I teach a national parks and public lands class. It includes a three day trip, and we are going to Channel Islands National Park this year for three days, and that's open to any major. So, you know, that's an opportunity as well. And then, of course, I want to encourage students to go to our website. You know, look at we've got all our faculty up there. We've got our programs. You can see some of the places we work in and so the organizations we work with. So that can give you a sense of, am I interested in this, that sort of thing. And you can see our mission, all that kind of good stuff.

Matt Markin  
Wonderful. Well, Dr. Youngs, lot of great information. I learned a lot too through this interview. So I really appreciate you being on the podcast and sharing information about geography and environmental studies. Thank you so much.

Dr. Yolonda Youngs  
Thank you, Matt. This has been a real pleasure, and I look forward to talking to any students who might be listening to this, and please come check us out.