SST Graduate Application Process

Description:  The School for Scientific Thought (SST) aims to provide UCSB science and engineering graduate students or postdoctoral researchers the opportunity to design and teach a five-session hands-on course, on a topic of their choice, for an audience of local and regional high school students.  The SST is designed to benefit high school students, graduate students, postdocs, faculty mentors, and promote the understanding of the practice of science. 

Activities:  Following the application and submission of a course proposal, graduate students and postdoctoral researchers will be invited for an interview. Graduates and postdocs will then use the Summer or Fall for designing their course curriculum with guidance from a mentor.  SST instructors will engage in a multi-day training workshop structured to support and refine their upcoming work with high school students.  Fall Instructors will have multi-day training in September and the Winter instructors will have their multi-day training in early January.

Graduate students and postdocs will teach their course (can include laboratory work) in the morning (10:00 am-12:15pm) in Fall or Winter over five Saturdays. 

Fall 2019: 10/5, 10/12, 10/19, 10/26 and 11/2.

Winter 2020: 2/1, 2/8, 2/22, 3/29 and 3/7.

Calendar of Mandatory Events:

At least two meetings with a faculty mentor at UCSB (can be your research advisor) to review your course design before the training session.

Training session to be scheduled in 6-weeks leading up to teaching session either Fall or Winter quarters.  Training consists of 3 days of 10am-2pm. The training session is a hands-on workshop that will build on your course design. 

Teaching SST course over five mostly consecutive Saturdays.

How to apply:

Teaching Application for SST are accepting on a rolling basis. 

Based on the application and letter of recommendation graduate students will be invited for an interview after the application is complete.

Partial Fellowships will be awarded at the level of $2000 for full completion of the program or $1000 per graduate student if you share course design and teaching.  All students must attend the training.  There is no fellowship for postdoctoral researchers.

Application for Winter Quarter 2020 available here

Informal Letter of Recommendation from your faculty advisor can be sent via email to Wendy Ibsen at wendyibsen@ucsb.edu

Please contact us at wendyibsen@ucsb.edu with further questions.