Masters in Forestry: Degree Types, How Long It Takes, Careers & Salary

Video Transcript

Host Question:
What is the Masters in environmental studies or forestry management, and what sorts of careers does that level of education open up for you?

Guest Answer:
Masters is hit and miss, a buddy of mine would say no. I’m going to continue on my masters right after the workforce is not very kind to him for that because now, unfortunately, he put himself in a position and there’s a lot of people there overeducated for unskilled positions in a lot of companies will not hire you of a masters if you don’t have any work experience. Now, it depends, though. Do you have an engineering degree that’s a little different? Some will hire you. It just depends. That’s gonna be more. Like your government type positions. They’re going to hire you with a master’s degree.
Private sector? No job experience? No absolutely not. You’re a liability more than anything else.

Guest Answer:
A lot of them can be two years or four years at most master’s program or 2 years if you already have a bachelor’s. And it seems to me that a lot of the master’s stuff is more focused on the policy and business side. So there’s not necessarily a huge benefit to having a master’s that you wouldn’t get from having experience if you’re working in the state or federal government side. I know forest business is huge and there’s a ton of companies like logging, timber, forests, resource companies and a lot of those master’s courses actually blend a lot of business coursework with the advanced forestry degrees because a lot of the people with the master’s in that basically consulting for private landowners are private companies that produce forest products. So a lot of it is working like with conservation agencies to provide best management practices for either their easement or their land management plans. So a lot of it is more of the policy and development side. So it’s actually less science than I thought. A lot of these master’s programs at, they blend a lot more elements with the pure forest science, like I said, business consulting, economic development, that kind of thing.

Guest Answer:
For master’s programs, they’re typically looking at one to three years on top of a bachelor’s program. And it really depends on the focus of your program. But both have master’s can either more easily step into like a professional series with a government. So instead of a forestry technician, you would just be a Forester. You have more responsibilities. You have kind of a ladder that climbs a little higher as a Forester versus a forestry technician. And those are folks where it’s easier to get at a position like that. The master’s certainly not impossible with a bachelor’s, but that should make it easier. And then more like research and hard science oriented positions. If you want to work for like a research station with a Forest Service or like a public University or a master’s is definitely going to help get those types of jobs.

Guest Answer:
So your masters is just taking that next step. You’re doing some additional research, your own research, whatever that question might be that you are concerned about. If you go the thesis route, you have 32 additional credit hours. If you do the non-thesis, you have about 36 credit hours. So again, that could take you to three years. It just kind of depends on how many credits you take a semester. And as far as your master’s is concerned, it would be a forest economics due to be a forest bio attrition or a forest carbon modeling manager.

Guest Answer:
So masters is after you done the bachelors. Generally two to three years, depending on what program you’re doing or what I guess like area underneath the forestry degree you’re focused on a big career that you can do after is to become a wildlife biologist and you get to do basically your own research on species of animals, plants, whatever usually in remote areas really has a huge impact on conservation efforts in another route you could go is you could become a natural resource policy analyst and you’d be responsible for developing like legislation and policies in the government related to land use and Wildlife.

Guest Answer:
A lot of universities will allow you to be Professor with just a master’s degree, which pays pretty well. And every University across the US has an exchange program that well, every University that has a longer University has an extension. Just what I do and you can, with your masters, also work for extension and receive a pretty good salary as well.