Who's new: Introducing our 2017 incoming graduate student cohort | Graduate Student Resource Center (GradPost)

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UCSB welcomes 891 new grad students into its ranks at the end of this month, our largest incoming class in recent memory. We break down some statistics on our incoming cohort and give you a sneak peak at our upcoming series of articles profiling 8 of our new students!

2017 Incoming Grads

UC Santa Barbara welcomes 891 new graduate students into its ranks âat the end of this month, âour largest incoming class âin recent memory. We break down âsome statistics on our incoming cohort and give you a sneak peak at our upcoming series of articles profiling eight of our new studentâs!

Most of the incoming graduate students are between the ages of 22 and 30, but our youngest incoming student is 20 years old and our oldest is 57 years old. Sixteen percent are first-generation college students, and in addition to being the largest incoming class, it is also the most diverse. Below is a breakdown of incoming students based on the race or ethnicity that they identify with. While about half of incoming students identify as âWhite, a large percentage of our new students identify as Chinese / Chinese American, East Indian / Pakistani, and Chicano / Mexican American.

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Our new graduate students are coming from 49 different countries - from China to âChile, âIndia to South Africa, Mexico to Malaysia - representing nearly every continent. In fact, roughly one-third of incoming students (301, to be exact) are coming from places outside the country. Our U.S. students hail from 43 of the 50 states (including Hawaii, Alaska, as well as Guam), but 40% of them are California residents.

The most popular disciplines that our new graduate students chose were Environmental Science and Management (102 new students), Electrical and Computer Engineering (92 new students), and the Teacher Education Program (78 new students). In general, 67% of incoming students are in STEM fields (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) and 33% of students are in SHEF fields (Social Science, Humanities, Education, and Fine Arts).

We asked several of our new grad students to tell us more about themselves, including what degrees they will be pursuing, what they are looking forward to âin graduate school, and what are some surprising facts about them. Starting next week, we will publish one profile per day until the first day of classes to celebrate our incoming grads.

Stay tuned to learn more.