Undergraduate Students

First-generation Students Shine at UC Merced. This Week Celebrates Them

November 3, 2025

UC Merced Professor Rose Scott, student Narciso Martinez Solorio

More than six in 10 UC Merced undergraduates are the first in their families to attend a university. The national average for four-year universities is about two in 10. Opening doors to opportunity for first-generation students is infused into UC Merced’s DNA. Young people who had little...

Alumna Kisha McGuire is a program counselor in the Fiat Lux Scholars Program within the campus’s Calvin E. Bright Success Center.

Alumna Staffer Pours Her Passion into Serving Students

Kisha McGuire has discovered an opportunity to do what she loves for an institution she’s grown to care deeply about. McGuire graduated from UC Merced in 2015 with a bachelor’s degree...

Senior Maria Rivas Reyes was part of a small group of UC Merced students who visited Peru during winter break, serving as translators for medical purposes.

UC Merced Students Explore Peru By Volunteering as Translators

The explorer mentality, public health Professor Stephen Wooding said, is what sets the students of UC Merced apart from anywhere else. A willingness to try something new, to go somewhere they’d...

Research Week Offers Events, Education, Tours and More

This year’s Research Week, March 4-8, promises more community connections than ever before. Research Week , sponsored by the Office of Research and Economic Development, focuses on the...

Several UC Merced students have been profiled as rising stars of Bay Area-based Students Rising Above program

Students Celebrated for ‘Rising Above’ at UC Merced

UC Merced has a track record of helping first-generation and underrepresented students succeed in college, earning high rankings nationally for social mobility and outperforming expected graduation...

UC Merced Designing Management School of the Future

A new effort is underway to lay the groundwork for the next major development at UC Merced — a fourth school, this one with the Gallo family name on it. The planning initiative is a faculty-...

This Saturday, mechanical engineering major Vanessa Andrade will participate in the university’s second fall commencement ceremony.

Passion for Cars Steers Graduating Senior into Mechanical Engineering

Growing up in San Juan Bautista, Vanessa Andrade loved hanging out with her father and his collection of cars and tractors. She spent hours in the “barn” or shop, helping change the...

New Consortium Seeks to Expose Students to a Galaxy of Opportunities

Imagine exploring the cores of stars to understand — and ultimately control — the type of fusion that’s taking place. High-energy density (HED) science is the study of properties...

Members of the Office of the Chancellor and interns from the Green Offices program with the platinum Green Offices certification

UC Merced Secures First Platinum Certifications in Labs, Offices

It’s the crown jewel of sustainability — a platinum certification signifying all the steps to making a space sustainable have been met. For UC Merced, platinum certification had eluded...

CAREER Award Will Help Professor Advance Organic Chemistry Education

Chemistry and chemical biology Professor Ryan Baxter recently became the campus’s 22nd recipient of the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) prestigious early CAREER awards for untenured...