Master of Philosophy (MPhil) in Environmental Sciences

Program Available At Hamilton Campus

The Master of Philosophy (MPhil) degree has a status higher than that of other Masters' degrees but lower than that of the Ph.D. degree. It is a research degree designed to recognize an original contribution to knowledge and the comments on the originality and significance of the Ph.D. thesis apply here too. However, it is intended that an MPhil thesis be the product of only one year of full-time research (though in practice candidates invariably take longer) and the original contribution to knowledge will, therefore, be less than would be expected in a Ph.D. thesis.

The growing human population is expected to exceed 9 billion within the next 40 years.  The need to provide for increasing human demands, while protecting and sustainably managing the environment, is one of our greatest global challenges. Environmental Science is at the core of this challenge.

A major in Environmental Sciences at Waikato encompasses ecology, earth sciences, and environmental chemistry as well as many other disciplines. It is about understanding and managing human impacts on our land, biodiversity, freshwater, oceans, atmosphere, and climate while providing the food, water, energy, and mineral resource needs that are critical to our survival.

At Waikato, we take a strong interdisciplinary approach so you will gain skills in applying the biological, chemical and earth sciences to understand and manage the impacts of human activities on the environment.