Undergraduate Students

College can be intimidating — new classes, new people, new responsibilities, and that’s before you even get to the coursework itself. For some, the transition can be difficult.

UC Merced’s Peer Assisted Learning Support (PALS) makes it a little easier for students who might feel intimidated approaching professors about their struggles in a given course. The learning sessions match trained student tutors with other students, and they cover many subjects. 

Professor YangQuan Chen has many reasons to be proud of his Mechatronics, Embedded Systems and Automation (MESA) Lab.

Besides being extremely popular — so popular the lab has to turn away applicants — the lab now has nine Federal Aviation Administration certificates to fly unmanned aerial vehicles around the Central Valley.

A new grant from the U.S. Department of Education will help the University of California, Merced, establish important support services for first-generation and low-income students who have yet to declare a major.

The grant, totaling $1.09 million over five years, will launch the Strengthening Talents and Exploring Pathways (STEP) program. STEP will be part of the Calvin E. Bright Success Center’s existing Fiat Lux program, which serves underrepresented students at UC Merced.

Undergraduate student Andrew

UC Merced is the only university in the country to have all of its buildings certified under the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) program. That body of work was honored at the spring conference of the group’s Central California chapter, where UC Merced was recognized for having the most LEED-certified buildings in the region.

Like their colleagues in science and engineering, researchers in UC Merced’s School of Social Sciences, Humanities and Arts are keeping busy this summer with a wide variety of projects.

Among them:

The summer might mean an extended break for some in the campus community, but UC Merced researchers are busier than ever. Whether here or abroad, many professors and students are taking advantage of the time off to pursue important research projects. 

The Campus Advocacy, Resources and Education (CARE) Office has moved to a new location in the Leo and Dottie Kolligian Library, Room 107. Students and staff and faculty members are invited to an open house from 3 to 5 p.m. on July 10.