The Anthropology Graduate Program at UC Santa Cruz is one of the foremost in the country, widely recognized for the creative scholarship of its students and faculty. Graduates have continued their careers at leading academic and government institutions, including Cambridge University, Stanford, Yale, the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

The UC Santa Cruz Politics Department Faculty provides a distinctive mix of senior scholars whose work has led the field toward interdisciplinary and engaged research, and junior scholars whose work represents the diverse cutting-edge of U.S. and international political research. The small size of the program encourages close interaction among faculty and students.

The Ph.D. program in history at the University of California, Santa Cruz, emphasizes an interdisciplinary and cross-cultural approach to historical studies.

Located in the Humanities, Feminist Studies Ph.D. program is an interdisciplinary program investigates how relations of gender are embedded in social, political, racial, and cultural formations. The program emphasizes feminist modes of inquiry and is designed to provide advanced training in feminist theories and methods.

The Ph.D. program in Film and Digital Media challenges the traditionally conceived borders between creative and critical practice. The program enables potential dialogue between creative practice and theoretical knowledge as related forms of intellectual work.

Consistently ranked in the top 10 worldwide for space science, UC Santa Cruz is known for breakthrough discoveries on explosive phenomena in the cosmos, the origins of gravitational waves, stellar and planetary structure, the secrets of potentially habitable exoplanets, and all aspects of observational, optical, and infrared astronomy.

The Ph.D. program in Latin American and Latino Studies at University of California Santa Cruz offers an innovative transnational and interdisciplinary approach to the study of the peoples, cultures, societies and institutions of the Américas.

The graduate curriculum covers a set of breadth requirements designed to provide both a common experience on which students can build their individual projects and a shared framework within which they can exchange ideas. In the first year, students will take at least one course in the area of metaphysics and epistemology, one course in the history of philosophy, and one coures in moral philosophy.