Undergraduate Experience at UC Merced

Student & Alumni Success

From Wild Mushrooms to Punchlines, Bobcats Learn in Out-of-the-Box Ways

May 26, 2026

A student hones communication skills by learning how to use comedy to deliver messages.
Editor's note: This story is republished from the Spring/Summer 2026 issue of UC Merced Magazine. Walk across UC Merced’s campus on any weekday, and you might hear laughter spilling from a classroom, feel the thrum of a wind tunnel or spot students crouched in a field searching for...
30,105 prospective students seek to become Bobcats in fall 2021.

UC Merced Receives Highest Number of Applications in Campus’s History

In a record year for applicants to the entire University of California system, UC Merced has received a total of 30,105 prospective student applications among freshman and transfer students into the...
UC Merced's three schools will have their own fall commencement ceremonies broadcast simultaneously, complete with closed captioning in English and Spanish.

Virtual Fall Commencement Customized for Grads

UC Merced will host its second virtual ceremony for the Fall 2020 Commencement on Dec. 19, with a host of changes meant to confer upon students the distinct importance of the achievement. New this...
The scarcity of research on smoking rates among Arab Americans led Ph.D. student Sarah Alnahari to broaden her focus from minority and immigrant health to the social, historical and political contexts pertaining to tobacco control.

Fellowship Advances Student’s Research into Arab American Smoking Behaviors

Public Health doctoral student Sarah Alnahari was awarded a UC Tobacco-Related Disease Research Program (TRDRP) Predoctoral Fellowship to continue her community-driven research examining tobacco use...

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....

Connection Between COVID-19 and Loss of Smell Uncovered by Research Team

About 70 percent of people with COVID-19 suddenly lose their sense of smell, although fewer of them seem to realize it, according to a new “living analysis” by a research team that...

Virtual Summer Academy, Other Sessions, Reached Students Around the Country

Students and faculty worked with a record number of schoolchildren from Merced, the Bay Area and southern California all the way to Washington, D.C., enriching their learning and increasing their...

Alum Develops Device to Measure and Manipulate Invisible Force

As scientists build smaller and smaller machines, they need to understand the invisible forces that make those machines work. Thanks to research and the initiative of then-UC Merced graduate...

Public Health Ph.D. Student Wins CCAPW Scholarship

Shaina Santa Cruz, a graduate student in the Public Health Graduate Program, was awarded the Central California Asian Pacific Women (CCAPW) scholarship. The scholarship provides financial...

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