College of the Atlantic is a small, liberal arts college on the coast of Mount Desert Island, Maine. All students design their own program of study in human ecology, an educational approach that integrates knowledge from across academic disciplines and personal experience to investigate, and ultimately improve, the relationships between humans and our natural, social, and built environments. COA prepares students to be independent thinkers, to address pressing environmental and social issues, and to be passionately engaged in transforming the world around them into a better place.