Commencement

UC Merced Graduates Encouraged to Embrace Every Moment

May 19, 2025

With cheers, hugs and leis, more than 1,500 UC Merced graduates received a celebratory sendoff to their bright futures as a prominent keynote speaker told them to make the most of the here and now. Hundreds of families and friends joined the graduates in three days of commencement ceremonies at...

Fall Commencement's Alumni Speaker Maps Out Path to Success

p.news::first-letter { font-size: 100%; } 5:15 a.m.: Wake up. My phone is my alarm, placed under my bed so I must get up to turn it off. Make my bed. Stretch. Ish Verduzco has a weekday...

Fall Commencement: UC Merced a ‘Companion’ for Student Speaker

For Xiaolong “Harry” Chen, UC Merced is more than a university. “It is a friend and a companion,” he wrote in his application to be student speaker at Fall Commencement....

First Virtual Commencement Honors Class of 2020

The Class of 2020 has officially graduated and while students didn’t cross the stage in typical commencement fashion, the celebration was memorable. In the first virtual commencement for a...

UC Merced is commemorating the tremendous accomplishments of its graduates with a virtual ceremony streamed at 10 a.m. May 16.

Virtual Commencement Promises Surprises for Grads, Families

While the COVID-19 pandemic has altered many things this spring on the UC Merced campus — from classes and research to events — UC Merced is making sure the Class of 2020 has a forum to...

This fall, Katie Daniels will start a faculty position in the sociology department at California Polytechnic State University, Pomona.

First-Generation Student Pursues Anti-Racism Research, Joins Cal-Poly Pomona this Fall

Kathryn “Katie” Daniels was a teen when she attended the celebration of the opening of UC Merced. As a child growing up in Merced, Daniels had heard her parents stress the importance of...

Family and friends of the newest UC Merced graduates gathered at Joseph Edward Gallo Recreation and Wellness Center last weekend for Fall Commencement.

UC Merced Celebrates Newest Fall Graduates

Nearly 200 students took part in the campus’s Fall Commencement exercise Sunday at the Joseph Edward Gallo Recreation and Wellness Center as friends and family cheered them on. Jessica...

Jessica Anderson will give the commencement address on Sunday, Dec. 15.

2010 Alum Jessica Anderson to Speak at UC Merced Fall Commencement

When Jessica Anderson first visited UC Merced as a high school senior, there wasn’t a campus to see. “They couldn’t bring us to campus because it was under construction,”...

Legacy Builders - An Oral History about the Class of 2009

The Class of 2009 were pioneers of the Bobcat spirit, overcoming obstacles and defying the odds. Ten years later, we look back at UC Merced’s formative beginnings from the perspectives of those...

Jason Castillo ('09), now a dermatologist and surgeon in Southern California, gives the alumni speech to the schools of Natural Sciences and Engineering at the spring 2019 commencement.

Older and Wiser: 2009 Graduates Reflect on Instrumental UC Merced Education

A decade has passed since Sam Fong (’09) crossed the stage to get his diploma and walked through Beginnings for the first time as part of UC Merced’s inaugural graduating class, and a lot...