Environmental Science is a major? Really?

Recently I attended a conference where local water resources nerds, like myself, gather to learn, debate and awkwardly socialize. Of all the presentations I heard over the course of two days one has stuck with me. It was by an environmental educator who made several strong points emphasizing the lack of not only environmental science in our schools, but a missing general science curriculum. SCIENCE! And engineering?? It's not even heard of in most schools. This conclusion hit me like a red brick, yes, now I understand why I had such a hard time choosing my career path while growing up in the rural Midwest. Back to the beginning...
My mom says I was a strange child. "Garbage," she tells me, "Everywhere we went you had to pick up all the garbage." Passionate and ambitious is how I would define myself as a young child. A few years ago I found a paper I had written in fifth grade, where the goal was to describe myself including things I would change. I wrote that I didn't want to be so lazy on the weekends, watching TV on the weekends was a waste of time and we should be spending our time outside. Ha, even in fifth grade I was pining to get my parents out the door to enjoy life. We lived on the lake and I wanted to spend my summers enjoying it. Boating, swimming and relaxing by the lake were my favorite activities.
In high school I took an agriculture class, the closest thing to an environmental education I could get. The teacher told me the first day, "This isn't your normal science class." I learned later what he was trying to tell me as it was one of the most pointless class I ever took, my glimpse at the environmental field was slipping through my fingers as I was grasping onto anything interesting he could bring into the classroom. After this class I thought, "that's it, environmental science is not for me." Continuing to struggle through future career options I went to a small college to study archaeology. After my first archaeology class I was lost again, finding that archaeology did not contain enough science for me. A teacher was my next career choice, after all if I can't find an interesting science career, maybe I can help someone else choose the right career path. After one agonizing first year of college I transferred hoping a more liberal school would bring me a new perspective. Ahhh...welcome to the University of Minnesota! Environmental Science, finally a major that might interest me. I didn't even know such a major existed, literally. I choose this major after looking at a long list of majors offerred at the University. To myself I thought, "Environmental Science is a major? Really? Awesome!" I couldn't wait to get started.
During my time at the University of Minnesota I took several soils classes, worked in a water quality lab and gained a better understanding of what career options were available to me.  As graduation loomed near I realized that my experiences gained through the program would not satisfy the requirements of most jobs I was interested in pursuing.  Hence began my search of graduate programs with an emphasis in water resources.  A PhD graduate student introduced me to the a few job opportunities out west.  Shortly before graduation I was offered a job to work under the lead Hydrologist at a federal agency in Arizona.  Thus initiated my first experiences to the vast expanses of the hydrology field.