Graduate Student Life

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Graduate Student Life Title Card

The Office of Graduate Student Life offers various services and support for graduate students from orientation to graduation. We aim to enhance the graduate experience with a diverse set of services. This includes interactive or live orientations each term, expert guidance for thesis and dissertation work, and active participation in social, professional development, and career preparation events.

At the heart of our support is the Graduate Student Center, a vibrant hub for year-round graduate life activities and events. Our initiatives are designed to foster a strong sense of community among graduate students, ensuring their time with us is both enriching and fulfilling. 

Mental Health Course

In January 2022, the College of Graduate Studies introduced a free webcourse titled “Plan for Wellbeing”. This web course is specifically designed to address the common stressors faced by graduate students and is aimed at promoting their mental health and overall well-being. The course offers the flexibility to students to engage in the modules independently and at their own pace.

Inspired by the Council of Graduate School’s report on supporting graduate students’ mental health and well-being, UCF proudly joins over 150 institutions endorsing the “Statement of Principles and Commitments of Graduate Deans.” This endorsement reflects our commitment to nurturing the mental health and well-being of graduate students.

To make this initiative successful, UCF’s graduate students led this effort, in collaboration with the Student Development and Enrollment Services (SDES), Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS), the PhD Program in Clinical Psychology, and Graduate Studies, played a pivotal role. They actively participated in the content creation by selecting topics that held significance to them and sharing their personal experiences through short video presentations integrated into the course. A digital workbook is provided as part of the web course, enabling students to craft personalized well-being plans tailored to their specific needs.

Since its launch in January 2022, the Wellness course has seen 422 students voluntarily enroll. We are committed to the continuous improvement of this program and actively seek feedback from graduate students to identify crucial topics for inclusion in future course iterations.

Access the course: https://webcourses.ucf.edu/enroll/LGBMY4.

Orientation

The New Graduate Student Orientation and Welcome event, held annually in August before the start of the fall semester, is a half-day event assisting new students to get the most out of their graduate education experience and acclimating them to UCF. This year a total of 389 new graduate students participated in orientation. 

Since the Fall 2019 term, the College of Graduate Studies has been offering the New Graduate Student Online Orientation through Webcourses. This is an optional, non-credit course available free of charge to all incoming and current UCF students. Its primary purpose is to familiarize students with the wide range of resources and services available to UCF graduate students, as well as to provide an understanding of the university’s behavioral expectations. 

In 2022- 2023, the New Graduate Student Online Orientation webcourse saw an impressive engagement, of a total of 3,881 students enrolled. These participants viewed the webcourse pages over 202,336 times, indicating a strong interest in and utilization of the course.

Pathways to Success

The College of Graduate Studies administers the Pathways to Success program, offering a series of free workshops focused on academic integrity, communication, research, and professional as well as personal development for graduate students and postdoctoral scholars. 

These workshops feature subject matter experts drawn from Graduate Studies, UCF faculty, and campus partners, including UCF Libraries, Career Services, Office of Research, Student Rights and Responsibilities, Counseling and Psychological Services, and more.

These workshops go beyond just building skills for students; they are also integral in enhancing retention rates and preparing graduate students for success beyond their academic journey.

During the year 2022-2023 including the summer, fall, and spring terms, a total of 127 Pathways to Success workshop sessions were conducted with an attendance of over 2,500 participants.

Thesis and Dissertation

The College of Graduate Studies manages the review and submission processes for all graduate theses and dissertations at UCF. Our team organizes workshops, oversees two non-credit thesis and dissertation webcourses (serving both faculty/staff and students), and partners with the UCF Libraries to offer research training. 

In 2022-2023, our team completed 1,410 format reviews and facilitated the submission of 564 final theses and dissertations. We also work with UCF Libraries to offer worldwide access to electronic theses and dissertations (ETDs) via the STARS (Showcase of Text, Archives, Research and Scholarship) repository, which proved to be a valuable resource with 708,493 ETD downloads during this period. 

ETD Submissions 2022 – 2023 Academic Year

Thesis and Dissertations Submitted

Academic TermSummer 2022Fall 2022Spring 2023Totals for Year
Master’s694387199
Doctoral11991112322
Totals by Term188134199521

Graduate Student Center

The Graduate Student Center (GSC) has been at the heart of nurturing a vibrant graduate community at UCF. Our dedicated graduate assistants at the GSC have played a pivotal role in creating a warm and inclusive environment by organizing events, offering insights into campus resources, and efficiently overseeing day-to-day operations. Situated on the second floor of Trevor Colbourn Hall, the GSC boasts four unique spaces, empowering the College of Graduate Studies to curate a diverse array of Graduate Student Life events and programs that cater specifically to the unique needs of our graduate student community.

Within the GSC, students can: 

In the past year, the GSC welcomed 1,358 graduate students who visited the center 3,698 times. First Wednesday social events were held in collaboration with Graduate Outreach during the fall and spring semesters. 

3MT

The 3MT (Three Minute Thesis) competition celebrates the exciting research conducted by doctoral students. Originally developed by the University of Queensland, the event cultivates students’ academic, presentation, and research communication skills. 3MT competitions are held in over 600 universities across more than 59 countries worldwide. Participants are judged on the ability to effectively convey the essence and importance of their research in an engaging way to a non-specialist panel of judges in just three minutes, with one PowerPoint slide.

In 2022, the event was extended to include master’s students in addition to the doctoral students presenting. The research finalists from ten doctoral and six master’s students were presented in the Morgridge International Reading Center for the 2022 event. Videos of all participants can be found on the UCF College of Graduate Studies YouTube playlist.

Winners and Finalists

Judges

Doctoral Category

Master’s Category 

Student Research Week

Student Research Week is UCF’s premier celebration of student research. In 2023, the week’s highlights included the Student Scholar Symposium, panel discussions, professional development workshops, a Creative Scholarship Symposium, and the Excellence Awards.

The Student Scholar Symposium is the signature event, featuring graduate and undergraduate students presenting their UCF research. The Symposium allows students to showcase their research and creative scholarship to the UCF community across five poster sessions held over two days in the UCF Student Union. 

In 2023, 222 graduate student projects were among the 487 projects presented by 625 students. A panel of 123 UCF faculty and staff served as judges.

Graduate Student Winners