Opportunities in Setbacks
Graduate studies can bring surprises that prove to be great opportunities.
Message from the Dean
Settling in to the New Semester
In addition to your academic work, I urge you to take some time to explore the broader Berkeley campus and its offerings.
Welcome to the New Semester!
Welcome and orientation activities are underway — be sure that you access all that Berkeley offers!
Avail Yourself of Berkeley’s Abundant Resources
Need something? There is a resource for that.
How Will You Spend the Coming Months?
Explore opportunities for using your summer well.
Celebration Season
A time to applaud student accomplishments.
Mentorship
Supporting and rewarding excellent mentoring is a Berkeley priority.
Competitions and Celebrations
Hear about your peers’ research — and applaud the faculty who inspire and mentor our graduate students!
Looking Back, Planning Ahead
While the campus marks its 150th anniversary, we’re also planning for a sound and sustainable future. And you can have your say!
Welcome to 2018!
Start your semester by exploring opportunities to expand your horizons and hone your skills!
Best Wishes for a Well-Deserved Winter Break
Pause to reflect, recharge, and plan ahead!
Thanksgiving and Gratitude
Cultivating gratitude has many benefits — explore how it might benefit you!
Supporting Each Other in Difficult Times
Because disasters — whether fire, flood, or earthquake — can strike anytime, we serve ourselves, our loved ones, and our communities by being prepared.
Free Speech, Community Values, and Graduate Education
Good scholarship and professionalism rest on rigor and integrity in developing and examining viewpoints, always with civility and respect.
Welcome to the New Semester!
Welcome and orientation activities are underway – be sure that you and your fellow students access all that Berkeley offers!
How Will You Spend Your Summer?
Explore opportunities for using your summer well.
Celebrating Student Achievements
Reflections on graduate students’ inspiring accomplishments.
Berkeley Students Go to Sacramento… and Beyond!
Legislators at all levels need to know about the importance of graduate research.
Good News, and New Opportunities!
Our next Chancellor is announced… and after Spring Break, our next Grad Slam Champion will be chosen!
Welcome to 2017!
Professional development opportunities this semester include competing in Grad Slam for prizes and a chance to represent Berkeley at the high-profile UC-wide competition.
A Time to Recharge
During the semester break, take advantage of time to have fun and connect with friends and family.
Strength in Diversity
The UC Berkeley community affirms our commitment to inclusion and respect for diversity of background, experience, and approach.
Exercise Your Civil Rights: Learn, Discuss, Vote!
If you can, act on your civic responsibility by voting on November 8. If you’re not able to vote, add your voice to a democratic exchange of viewpoints.
Expanded Housing Ahead for Berkeley Students
Your input will be sought on plans to provide campus housing to 25% of the graduate student population, among other goals proposed by the Housing Master Plan Task Force.
Welcome to the New Semester!
New Graduate Student Orientations are for incoming students; GradNews is for all students!
Sadness… and Solace
In the face of tragedy, what we can do to make the world a more just and peaceful place.
Our Hearts Go Out to the Innocent Lives Lost in the Past Month
In response to the shocking news of the mass shooting that occurred in Orlando, FL targeting the LGBTQA+ community, I wish everyone an empowering and safe Pride Month as we mourn the events and innocent lives lost in the attack.
May Transitions
At whenever stage you are in your academic or professional career, now is a good time for reflecting, planning, and balancing!
Professional Development: Never Too Soon or Too Late
Throughout your graduate career, take advantage of professional development opportunities!
Healthy News and Fast Talk!
Expanded health insurance is ahead, the Berkeley Grad Slam is around the corner, and spring is on its way!
Celebrate Multiculturalism!
Spring festivals remind me of the multicultural richness of the Berkeley campus and our surrounding area.
Start Your Spring with a Slam!
Welcome back! Important opportunities and events are just ahead in the coming weeks!
Get Ready for the Winter Break!
Winter break offers time to refresh your rhythms, consider new resolutions, and think ahead to the new year.
Graduate Division Gives Big to Berkeley Students Everyday
On November 19, BIG GIVE day, check out what we do for you! Stop by our open house from 12:30 to 2:30 pm, 309 Sproul Hall and share some refreshments.
Get SMART
Pairing summer research with mentoring opportunities is a smart combination with many benefits for participating graduate students.
Find Your Balance
Creating balance between academic work and personal refreshment is vital for keeping healthy and for succeeding in your goals over the long haul.
Welcome to the New Academic Year!
New and continuing graduate students will have new opportunities to develop skills, prepare for diverse careers and set goals with the help of the new Graduate Professional Services (GPS) Center, launching soon.
Summer Hums on Campus
The campus is humming with the excitement of more than 16,000 students here for Summer Sessions. When your paths intersect, enrich your own perspectives by taking time to meet new people from near and far, and share your Berkeley stories.
Support at a Time of Tragedy
The Berkeley campus offers support to those affected by the tragic accident in the City of Berkeley.
May is a Month for Recognitions and Reflections
Use this summer to reflect on your academic progress and research you’ve accomplished this year, and happy journeys ahead.
On Teaching and Mentoring
Teaching is an incredibly important part of Berkeley’s academic landscape, and this is the time of year when a variety of awards and ceremonies recognize exceptional accomplishments in teaching and mentoring.
Berkeley Grad Students to Compete in First UC-Wide “Grad Slam”
I find it especially exciting when chances to shine are open to all graduate students from all sectors of our campus — and even more so, when Berkeley students vie for the spotlight with peers from the nine other UC campuses.
First Impressions
In my first month as the new Dean of the Graduate Division, I’ve been crisscrossing the campus, visiting the 18 schools, colleges, meeting with deans, department chairs, senior administrators, faculty, students, and staff. I’ve been doing a lot of listening . . .
Welcome from Your New Dean
Happy New Year! I hope that the new semester finds you energized from the winter break, whether you spent it relaxing with family and friends, traveling, tearing down a ski slope, or doing something else that you love doing.
Reflections on the Fall Semester
As the Interim Dean of the Graduate Division, I have enjoyed the opportunity to deepen my involvement with various projects close to my heart. The new Dean of the Graduate Division, Fiona Doyle, Professor of Mineral Engineering, will begin her post on January 1, 2015.
Berkeley Fuel
Graduate education at Berkeley is fueled by many forces: great minds with a passion for discovery; a drive to approach problems in new ways to innovate new solutions, and philanthropy . . .
Free Speech Movement Leaves an Inspiring Legacy
Berkeley has preserved the documentary record of this extraordinary time, ensuring that future generations will be in a position to explore these events that changed the landscape of higher education in the United States.
Once Again UC Berkeley Ranks First Among Public Universities
For the 17th consecutive year, the most recent rankings by U.S. News & World Report placed UC Berkeley as first among public universities in the nation.
Welcome to Berkeley!
For incoming students, I hope to see you at the New Graduate Student Orientation (NGSO) on Tuesday, August 26. This lively half-day event is packed with speakers and workshops tailored to help you learn about resources essential to getting oriented to campus.
Introducing New Leadership in the Graduate Division
For the past three years, Rosemary Joyce has served as Associate Dean. Now, she is stepping in as Interim Dean of the Graduate Division this summer and fall, while the campus conducts a search for a successor to former Dean Andrew Szeri, who has taken on a different Vice Provost role.
Reflections on Moving On
As Andrew Szeri moves on to his new position, Vice Provost, Strategic Academic & Facilities Planning, he reflects on his time at Graduate Division. “It has been my privilege to help lead Berkeley’s efforts to support the ambitions of more than 10,000 graduate students and to help enable the world-class excellence of 100-plus programs.” said Szeri.
Congratulations on Another Successful Semester!
Congratulations! The semester is coming to an end, as recently did the “Campaign for Berkeley.” The six year campaign successfully raised over $3 billion for the University and nearly doubled graduate fellowships.
Campus Climate Survey Yields Results
About one-quarter of all graduate students participated in the survey, which found 79 percent of graduate students were satisfied with their academic experience at UC Berkeley. The survey is believed to be the largest study of institutional climate ever conducted.
Berkeley Leads Alliance to Increase Diversity in STEM Fields
Berkeley leads three West Coast universities in an unprecedented alliance to broaden the pipeline of Ph.D. students, postdoctoral scholars, and faculty in STEM disciplines.
Staying on Top of Your Profession
Over the last year I have been thrilled to see multiple initiatives emerge to expand professional development opportunities for graduate students. One of those — organized by graduate students and postdoctoral appointees — is the second annual “Beyond Academia” Conference on February 20-21.
Message from the Dean
Here’s good news to start the spring semester: A personalized one-stop web service — called CalCentral — has just been released to all campus constituencies.
Message from the Dean
January will bring unprecedented change to millions of Americans as formerly uninsured and under-insured citizens gain access to new health insurance options created by the Affordable Care Act (ACA), also known as “Obamacare.” You’ll be glad to know that SHIP provides all of the ACA-mandated “essential health benefits.”
Message from the Dean
I was glad to see some of you November 8th at the Inauguration of Nicholas B. Dirks as the 10th Chancellor of UC Berkeley. The day was one of “pomp and circumstance.”
Did You Know that Fellowships and Awards May Be Taxable?
If you receive a fellowship or award, be aware that all or part of it may be taxable as income.
Staying on Track with GLOW
View your progress towards degree and check the status of various forms, petitions, and approvals, including qualifying exam results, dissertation/thesis committee constitution, advancement-to-candidacy, academic employment appointments, fellowships and awards.
Welcome — and Welcome Back — to Berkeley!
Summer is flying by. In just a few weeks, the whirlwind of start-of-semester activities will begin. Those of you who are returning to Berkeley will be greeting your newest graduate student colleagues to your department or program and to the … Continued
Great News for Student Parents (and Their Colleagues)
Currently registered graduate and undergraduate student parents will have access to 60 hours of emergency back-up child care at highly subsidized rates, beginning mid-August, as long as funds permit.
Graduate Students Educate Sacramento
On June 4th, a group of deans and graduate students from all UC campuses attended the Graduate Research Advocacy Day in Sacramento. They spoke with lawmakers about the value of graduate education to the State of California.
Congratulations — and advice as summer begins
Working on your dissertation this summer? Check out the Dissertation Writer’s Room in Doe Library. Traveling abroad? Take advantage of University travel resources.
Vote Now on ASUC Referenda
Did you know that graduate students can vote in ASUC elections, happening right now? Check out the referenda that may indeed be of considerable interest to you — and then, vote!
Berkeley’s Stellar Performance in the Latest Rankings
While we have our own internal standards for assessing and maintaining academic quality at Berkeley, it’s been gratifying to see that highly regarded national and international measures judge that Berkeley continues to do very well — superbly, in fact.
Help us attract more students like you
Do you know personally any students who have applied to graduate schools and are considering Berkeley among their options? Please share your insider knowledge about your program, the faculty, the courses and the research.
Let us know your good news and ideas
Welcome back! I hope you took time during the holiday break to recharge your batteries and gain some fresh perspectives on your work and your life. As for me, my perspective was altered by a week in rural Cambodia, doing my small part to volunteer with a medical clinic …
A Graduate Division report card, graded by you
We can always count on you to be very frank and thoughtful. We were on tenterhooks waiting for your survey answers to arrive and be compiled, and let out a big sigh of relief when we saw the results.
Tell an undergrad about grad school
Sometimes undergraduates need an extra nudge to prompt them to consider applying to graduate school. It could come from you.
WarnMe: new options for emergency notification
Have you updated your WarnMe contact options? WarnMe is a campus service that exists to save live, including yours.
Two words that count: please vote!
My message this time is directed to students who hold U.S. citizenship, and it can be summed up in two words: please vote! A vital first step is registering to vote, and the deadline for that is October 22. Here’s how.
Welcome, and welcome back, respectively!
Graduate students: whether you’re among the 3,000 newcomers or the 7,000 returnees, here are some tips worth noting, from the Graduate Dean.
This could be the start of something big
Message from the Dean: What do the afterglow of the Big Bang and the influence of facial hair on 19th-century American presidential politics have in common? The new SMART program, being piloted this summer with graduate students mentoring undergrads in hands-on research.
GSIs (and their mentors) are central to Berkeley’s teaching mission
Dear Graduate Students, As the spring semester drew to a close, I enjoyed several opportunities to celebrate great teaching by graduate students. At the Outstanding Graduate Student Instructor Award ceremony on the first of May at International House, we acknowledged … Continued
Mentoring comes of age at Berkeley
Not all aspects of a dean’s job bring smiles; it’s hardly possible to please everyone all the time. That said, there are events during the year that irresistibly bring a smile to my face, and make a lot of people … Continued
Already a busy semester for the Graduate Division, here and abroad
Dear Graduate Students, Your future selves are out there — graduate alumni of Berkeley. Some of them are very far from campus, oceans away, but they remain surprisingly close. I spent a week recently visiting alumni at events in Shanghai, … Continued
Think of yourself as a Primary Source
Any day you may find yourself chatting (by phone or email or Facebook or even in person) with a student who is considering coming to Berkeley.
You’re here, on the ground. You know the campus from the inside, and you have a unique kind of credibility: you’re a student now, doing the very thing your questioner is hoping to do, at one of the most desirable places in the world.
To augment your knowledge of Berkeley’s funding and more, we’ve prepared a detailed overview called Graduate Education at UC Berkeley.
For all of us: a town hall, a forum, and two new social media connections
A message from Graduate Dean Andrew Szeri about the upcoming Town Hall, the forum on the economics of higher education, and our new presence on Facebook and Twitter to better serve you.
Quite a semester!
It’s been quite a semester. Classwork and research took place along with actions to support our University’s core mission and values, and to improve our campus’s operations. In local, state, and national settings, students, faculty, and staff joined to advocate passionately for investing in public education as a common good in a good society.
Our Common Commitment
Recent campus events highlight the urgency of engaging the issues of our day with intellectual rigor and conducting ourselves in ways that enable dialogue and debate without fracturing the community of which we are all part.
Each one teach one
I’m happy to convey the Graduate Division’s heartiest congratulations to Berkeley Professor of Physics Saul Perlmutter, who early this month shared the Nobel Prize in Physics for the simultaneous discovery — with two competitor-colleagues half a world away at the Australian National University — of the accelerating expansion of the universe.
Mainly, the Graduate Division is here for you
Now that the semester is underway, I want to be sure you’re aware of various ways the Graduate Division might be able to assist you in the coming weeks and months, particularly if you’re new to Berkeley and haven’t yet fit us into your mental map of this complex campus.
Welcome (back) and here we go!
This summer certainly seemed to speed by. I kept busy helping with efforts to streamline our administration both in the Graduate Division and throughout campus. I enjoyed continuing to mentor the doctoral students in my lab group — and l even managed to hike in, through, and around the Alps!
Changes among Graduate Division’s Deans
Here is news about some significant changes in the Dean’s Office on the fourth floor of Sproul Hall…
How to track your milestones
Did you know there’s a way you can see for yourself, day or night, where you stand with regard to some of the key milestones in your graduate education?
How your (academic) travel can cost you less
For many graduate students, traveling to conduct research is among the most rewarding aspects of their studies. But it can be anxiety-producing to fund the costs of travel.
A look behind the curtain at the GRE
The Graduate Record Examinations General Test has been a milestone for many of us in the graduate community. A revised test will debut this coming August. How will it look to your college-bound younger siblings?
Through the rough times
I welcome you heartily, if somberly, to the Spring 2011 semester at UC Berkeley.
As no doubt you’re aware from media reports, the Berkeley campus and the UC system as a whole foresee a period ahead of continued austerity. It’s realistic, if small comfort, to view our situation as part of the challenge our nation, and California, face in a time that has been labeled accurately the Great Recession.
Safeguarding your academic integrity
In conversation with some graduate students recently, they encouraged me to address an important if unpleasant subject: academic misconduct — cheating, plagiarism, fabrication, facilitation of academic dishonesty, misrepresentation in records, etc. (Some categories and examples are discussed online.) My hope is … Continued
Engaging Graduate Alumni
Graduate alumni are pursuing the most astonishing array of careers, and it’s a pleasure for Dean of the Graduate Division Andrew Szeri to interact with them, especially given their warm feelings for their alma mater—UC Berkeley.
UC Berkeley among top of recently released NRC rankings
The National Research Council’s Data Based Assessment of Research Doctorate Programs has been released. Berkeley did very well in the assessment, with illustrative rankings that put many of our programs at or near the top.
Welcome back! — New writer’s room and orientation announcements
Now it’s back to the real world with classes to teach, seminars to engage, experiments to plan, qualifying exams to study for, breakthroughs to realize, manuscripts to finish, and hoods to don!
GSAOs — A Resource For Your Success
If you are a student who is new to campus — welcome! If you are filing a thesis or dissertation this month — congratulations!
New Dissertation Writing Resources Open to Students
Tom Leonard and I have both been where you are: in graduate school. Mine was Cornell (Ph.D., 1988), while Tom’s was right here at Cal (Ph.D., 1973). We both know how difficult it can be to find the right time … Continued
Graduation season — A cause for celebration
Graduation season, like a compass, is marked with a series of degrees. But the word “graduation” seems too, well, gradual for what actually happens when the campus blossoms with academic regalia, floral (and currency!) leis, and smiling relatives from all over the planet.
Research and educational opportunities outside California
Summer is here! Maybe you’re planning to leave campus over the summer for research or other educational pursuits? If so, then my never-too-frequent admonition about travel insurance is called for. Many of you will be traveling over the summer, while … Continued
The Importance of Mentoring
Following the adoption of this ‘best practices’ document by the Academic Senate in 2006, Graduate Division sought external support to establish a mentoring award — and that effort has been successful!
Attracting more and higher-quality grad students
It’s recruiting season, so many applicants are weighing their decisions about where to go to graduate school.
Graduate student support in the Campaign for Berkeley
On the evening of October 2, I had the pleasure of speaking at a GA Delegates meeting about the place of graduate student support in the Campaign for Berkeley.