University of California–Santa Barbara

The University of California, Santa Barbara is a public research university in the University of California system. It occupies a Pacific shoreline campus spanning Santa Barbara and Goleta. It began in 1891 as a teachers college, joined the University of California in 1944, and became a general campus thereafter. Membership in the UC system and a coastal site that houses marine, materials, and theoretical-physics research still structure the institution.

Graduate instruction runs through the College of Letters and Science, the College of Engineering, the College of Creative Studies, the Gevirtz Graduate School of Education, and the Bren School of Environmental Science and Management. Physics, materials, chemistry, marine science, and environmental science are the fields most associated with the campus. The Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics, the Materials Research Laboratory, the Marine Science Institute, and the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis are central for doctoral students.

Enrollment is about 26,000, with roughly 3,000 graduate students. International students make up more than 10 percent of enrollment. Faculty and affiliates include Nobel laureates Herbert Kroemer, Alan J. Heeger, David J. Gross, and Shuji Nakamura. Alumni include actor Michael Douglas and musician Jack Johnson.

Graduate study is dominated by the PhD, with MA, MS, and the Master of Environmental Science and Management also offered. The campus uses the UC quarter calendar. Doctoral students are typically supported by fellowships, teaching assistantships, and research grants. Housing and laboratories sit on the same bluff above the Pacific, with Santa Barbara and Goleta as the off-campus towns.

In the Grad School Navigator directory, University of California–Santa Barbara lists 121 graduate programs across 32 subjects: 51 master's programs and 70 doctoral programs, with the widest choice in music, languages & linguistics and biology. University of California–Santa Barbara holds rank 59 in the GSN Overall University Ranking.