Topic	Interdisciplinary Doctoral Training
Institution	University of California - Davis
Title	UC Davis Graduate Groups
Description	At UC Davis, graduate training in many fields is offered by "graduate groups" rather than by departments. These interdepartmental graduate groups, now numbering over 50, are composed of faculty who share common research interests, either in terms of scientific discipline or area of application. Because the research interests circumscribed by one group often overlap with the interests of other groups, it is common for individual faculty to belong to more than one group. For example, a food microbiologist typically belongs to both the Food Science Graduate Group and the Microbiology Graduate Group. Both food science and microbiology graduate students can work in the faculty member's laboratory. However, the two students would have very different coursework, as one would be following the food science curriculum and the other the microbiology curriculum. The major advantages of the unique graduate group system are that students have a much broader range of faculty from which to choose their major professors, as well as opportunities to interact with students from other graduate groups; faculty can similarly interact with colleagues in several disciplines; and the campus as a whole can respond quickly to new and emerging fields without the administrative requirement of forming a new department. http://gradstudies.ucdavis.edu/prospective/group.htm
Contact	Alison Kent Communications Director Office of Graduate Studies University of California - Davis 250 Mrak Hall 1 Shields Avenue Davis, CA  95616 Phone: 530-752-9300 Email: alkent@ucdavis.edu
Date Posted	March 2002