Where Your Future Takes Root
Dream of starting a successful landscape company? Have an eye for design and a drive to create with nature? Find the degree you need to flourish at Mississippi State University’s Department of Landscape Architecture and Environmental Design.
LANDSCAPE CONTRACTING & MANAGEMENT DEGREE
Work with your hands—and your mind. Manage the crews, equipment and systems behind beautiful green spaces. Landscape designers, arborists, project managers, estimators, nursery operators, and entrepreneurs quickly advance with this practical degree.
LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE DEGREE
Use creativity, technology, and science to design thoughtful spaces that connect culture, nature, and art (without the “starving artist” lifestyle). Join the studio as a landscape architect, shape a city’s future as an urban planner, or manage a public park system. You may even be tapped for specialized environmental projects.
Can’t decide? Get a Dual Degree in just one extra year. Ask how.
Be In The Green
Strong starting wages, high earning potential, and skills AI can’t replace.
Not only that, our department boasts a 100% job placement rate among graduating seniors. Now’s the time to join the growing green industry.
The Green Industry Is Growing
2024 Landscape Industry Market
Employers Reported More Jobs Than People in 2024
Landscape Architect Median Wage (2024)
Statistics from the National Association of Landscape Professionals, the IBIS World Landscaping Services Industry Report, and the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Outlook Handbook
Work that's creatively fulfilling, highly in-demand, and improves communities? The perfect career does exist.
Graduates in Landscape Architecture and Environmental Design degree programs design, build and manage thoughtful outdoor spaces for communities, commercial developments, and athletics.
Landscape Architecture is a highly creative career that blends expertise in discipline areas like STEM, art, and architecture. Landscape Contracting and Management is a business-oriented career that combines project management, plant care, and resource management for a wide range of clients.
For high school students who love art but struggle with the ROI of college costs, landscape architecture and landscape contracting offer sought-after careers with a variety of pathways open to graduates.
You don’t have to dream your perfect career — we’ll show you how you can build it.
Graduates in Landscape Contracting and Management create the outdoor spaces we move through every day. Careers take graduates from entrepreneurship to construction project management all the way to Fortune 500 companies in the specialization.
Students at Mississippi State participate in national competitions and get hands-on experience at internships across the country. With guidance and industry connections from University professors, graduates work in major urban areas, in suburban residential developments, or in innovative ecological projects.
The question isn't what can you do— it's how far do you want to go?
Graduates in Landscape Architecture and Landscape Contracting & Management programs can look forward to rewarding careers — creatively and financially. Landscape Architecture and Contracting & Management firms thrive in urban, suburban, or rural markets across the country.
Career growth can take someone to international conferences, the executive suite, or major cities. Landscape degree programs prepare graduates for in-demand professions with valuable skills.
Career-building Concentrations
More career options. More earning potential. MSU’s Landscape Contracting majors and Dual Degree majors can choose one of two concentrations:
LANDSCAPE BUSINESS MANAGEMENT
Attract the attention of some of the nation’s largest landscape firms or start your own successful company. Take courses in arboriculture, soil science, and landscape construction alongside management, HR, marketing, and entrepreneurship (no suit required).
ECOSYSTEM MANAGEMENT
Restore degraded wetlands as an ecological restoration planner, help cities manage stormwater as an environmental consultant, or maintain public tree canopy as an urban forestry specialist. Study environmental policy and environmental science alongside arboriculture and sustainable landscape management.
Join a New Generation
of Landscape Professionals
“I love seeing a site, and it’s just bare dirt, and you know that you made it what it is when you walk away.”
Andrew B., Landscape Contracting & Management Major, Landscape Business Management Concentration
"I've always really enjoyed being outside and just being in nature. My favorite thing about the major is probably how the classes are very hands-on."
Emree A., Dual Degree, Landscape Architecture and Landscape Contracting
“We’re using plants to save the world, literally. It’s amazing.”
Brianna J., Graduate Student, Landscape Architecture
"I am interested in ecological design. I'm researching ways to remove invasive species in the Catalpa Creek watershed."
Ryan L., Dual Major in Landscape Architecture & Landscape Contracting, Ecosystem Management Concentration
