L. Monika Moskal

Admission to the ESRM major (All Pathways/Options)

The Environmental Science and Terrestrial Resource Management (ESRM) major (including all ESRM degree options) is a Minimum Requirements major, which means all students who complete the Minimum Requirements for Admission are admitted to the major.  All details regarding ESRM Admission are available under ESRM Admissions.  Transfer Applicants should be aware that there are some significant issues regarding completing the Minimum Admission course requirements at other colleges/universities that may involve you needing to complete more courses in order to have your Minimum Admission requirements transfer correctly to the UW. Please consult ESRM Admissions for more information.

Graduation in the ESRM: General major

A substantial majority of our students pursue the ESRM: General program of study, as it is the most flexible.

To earn a B.S with a major in ESRM undergraduate students complete a minimum of 180 credits.

• For a full listing of all requirements, please see the ESRM Major in the UW Catalog.
• Both prospective transfer student applicants and current UW students can download this ESRM 4-year course plan document (under revision and coming soon) and use it to plan your required courses.
• Current UW students who want to download some or all of the 4-year course plan directly into MyPlan can do so by going to the ESRM sample 4-year course plan for importing into MyPlan [coming soon] (UW NetID required for access).  Here are additional access instructions for current UW students:

1. Click on ESRM Courses and Sample 4-year Course Plan [coming soon].  Review all 4 years of the plan.
2. Click on Import Plan (on right side of screen)
   1. You will have the option of downloading the courses required for the current quarter, or you can download multiple quarters or the whole Plan.   If you have other courses in your plan for the quarters in question, those classes will not be deleted.  Review the download instructions for more information.

Once the classes are in your Plan, you will be able to register for the classes as normal.

Requirements for the ESRM: General Pathway

All pathways in ESRM require the same set of ESRM Core courses, UW General Education requirements, and fundamental Science, Math, and Social Science course content.  The only distinction is in the final set of upper division course requirements (40-55 credits, depending on the pathway chosen and the classes selected within that pathway).

ESRM: General Pathway-Specific Requirements

ESRM: General requires 45 credits of upper- division courses from within the School of Environmental and Forest Sciences (ESRM and SBSE courses) or from a list of approved courses outside of SEFS.  There are some specific requirements of those 45 credits:

• 25-45 credits must be from 400-level courses.  You can select up to 20 credits of non-400-level courses if you want instead.
• A maximum of 10 credits can be from the ESRM Elective List of applicable classes from outside the department (see below), or courses approved via SEFS Course Petition.
  • PLEASE NOTE:  The elective list is new for the degree audits as of Autumn 2025, and we are still building out this elective list.  If you have courses that you think should be added, please let SEFS Advising know.  We are trying to reduce the number of elective petitions students need to submit.
• A maximum of 10 credits can be from the Q SCI Elective List below.
  • PLEASE NOTE: Q SCI courses are on both the Q SCI Elective List and the ESRM Elective List, which means you can complete up to 20 Q SCI credits as part of your degree.

ESRM Elective List of courses from outside the department (10 credits Max) – please let SEFS Advising know if you have additions to propose

Spots in These Courses for ESRM Students are Not Guaranteed and are Subject to All Registration Restrictions the Department in Question May Have In Place

Some of these Courses May Have Course Prerequisites that you Must Complete Before You Are Eligible to Register

Q SCI Elective List (10 credits Max)