Category: Announcements, Updates, and Reminders

We are looking for motivated and enthusiastic rising juniors to be peer advisors for the Environmental Science program for the upcoming school year!

Peer Advisors organize community-building and networking events for ENVSCI students each semester, as well as holding office hours to answer questions and inquiries from current and prospective students. Peer Advisors are also responsible for maintaining our ENVSCI Blog and social media messaging. Responsibilities and training would begin in September and continue throughout your senior year. Academic credit is earned in your junior year, with paid positions possible in your senior year.

Virtual interviews will be held in late March/Early April.

Application deadline: Friday, March 5th

The application has been sent out to all rising juniors, so look for it in your emails! If you have any questions you can contact the peer advisors:

nyunesperez@umass.edu

esirkovich@umass.edu

lmusshorn@umass.edu

In case you missed it last week, the University announced the official pass/fail policy for courses taken during the spring 2021 semester. Here are the key takeaways from the announcement.

• Students may elect the pass/fail option for up to three courses, including courses used to satisfy major, minor, and graduation requirements.
• Electing the pass/fail option must be done by Tuesday, May 4th.
• As per usual, students may revoke the pass/fail option after spring 2021 grades are posted, meaning a letter grade will appear for the course(s) for which the pass/fail option was revoked. This can be done until six months after a student graduates.
• Departments and major programs have the option to view the letter grade underlying a pass/fail grade for prerequisite classes in order to enforce the minimum grade requirements for advanced courses. In these cases, the student’s transcript will still display a pass or fail, and their GPA will still be unaffected.
• Students in 600+ level (i.e. graduate level) classes can elect satisfactory/fail for available courses. Students must contact their professor to make elect this option, and it will count toward the three permitted pass/fail courses for the semester.

For a more detailed description of the pass/fail policy for this semester, visit this webpage. As always, if you have any questions about this, feel free to contact us!

Welcome to the Spring 2021 semester, and welcome back to students living on campus!

If you are considering participating in research, there are a number of different face-to-face and remote research opportunities open to Environmental Science students. Click here to view the list of current opportunities.

Although the priority deadline (Monday, 2/1) has passed for submitting applications to these positions, it is always worth reaching out and seeing if applications are still being accepted.

And remember to keep up with your best practices regarding COVID-19, whether you’re on campus, in the Amherst area, or anywhere else in the world! Refer to this webpage for information from UMass about testing and other news regarding the pandemic.

Don’t forget, this Friday, 11/20 is the FINAL DEADLINE for choosing to elect the Pass/Fail option for your Fall 2020 courses.

Students may choose to have up to three of their courses as Elective Pass/Fail. Normally, students are only able to change one course per semester to Elective Pass/Fail. To switch from Letter-Grading to Elective Pass/Fail for your courses, click on the “Other Academic” dropdown menu (located next to the weekly course schedule) on the Spire Student Center, and select the option “Pass/Fail Elect.”

Students may choose Elective Pass/Fail grading for any and all types of courses, including those that satisfy graduation requirements. Normally, Elective Pass/Fail grading is reserved for elective courses that do not count toward graduation requirements. However, this semester the University is allowing all students to use Elective Pass/Fail grading for any and all types of courses, including GenEd courses, courses for a major, courses for a minor, courses for a certificate, etc.

More information on the Elective Pass/Fail option is available on the University Registrar’s website.

If you are having trouble deciding whether Elective Pass/Fail is the right choice for some of your classes, don’t wait! Contact an advisor right away!

We’re almost at the end of the semester, and that means finals are coming! Final exams are scheduled to take place from Monday 11/30 to Friday 12/4. Check your Spire account for your exam schedule (click on “Exam Schedule” under the dropdown menu titled “Other Academic” on the left side of the Student Center page), and make sure to check with your professors in case they are choosing to give the exam outside of the time slot listed in Spire.

If you are feeling daunted looking at your final exam schedule (like many of us are), fear not, the Office of Student Success is here to help make finals more manageable. There are two more workshops left in the office’s “Preparing for Finals” workshop. Take a look at the image below for more details, and go to Navigate to book your seat.

Best of luck on all your final exams and projects!

Halloween is this weekend, and even though it is a great opportunity to blow off some steam, we can’t forget to be safe! Please make sure to follow to recommendations in the two graphics below to keep your celebrations safe and healthy. Happy Halloween, everyone!

As we enter flu season, please remember to keep up your best practices for staying healthy! The more we can keep ourselves healthy, the stronger we all are against COVID-19, and the more lives we save. For the most up-to-date information about COVID-19 at UMass, visit umass.edu/coronavirus/.

And don’t forget to get your flu shot! As a reminder, all students who have signed on to the UMass Community Agreement have agreed to receive a flu vaccination. Even for students not living on or around the UMass campus, the Massachusetts Department of Public Health is requiring all students in the Commonwealth to get the flu vaccine. For information about receiving a flu vaccine from UMass, visit this webpage.

Did you know that along with the blog, you can now stay up to date with all things EnviSci using our new Instagram account? Follow us @umassenvisci for news about upcoming events, student spotlights, advising information, and more!