The OBXFS curriculum provides an enhanced focus on the social, natural, and policy sciences as applied to decision-making about environmental and natural resources. This makes a semester at the coast ideal preparation for graduate school in public policy, natural resource management, planning, and law. The individual classes are integrated to provide multiple lenses on understanding and solving co
mplex policy and management problems. A semester at the OBXFS will give students a total of 17 UNC credit hours. The OBXFS is situated in far northeastern North Carolina, amid the ocean, sounds, beaches, and marshes of one of the world’s most beautiful and dynamic settings. Northeastern North Carolina is also a region with strong cultural traditions intertwined with life in the outdoors, and an economy based on natural resources. Our location provides a rich and varied natural laboratory for observing and analyzing the way that public policy, individual decisions, and the natural environment interact and respond to a wide variety of changes. The OBXFS location also provides access to a rich set of cultural and recreational experiences. From Ocracoke Island to the Pocosin Arts Folk School in the Inner Banks town of Columbia, students meet and learn from residents about their lives and livelihoods. On their own time, students have access to one of the world’s best locations for fishing, surfing, kayaking, and numerous other outdoor activities.
