The graduate program in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at UC Santa Cruz is one of the premier EEB programs in the country. UCSC EEB graduate students regularly win prestigious awards for their presentations at international meetings and publish their work in the best journals in their fields. The purpose of the M.A. program in EEB is to allow students to complete graduate-level research that is more directed and shorter-term than that done by doctoral students. Students in the M.A. program share some coursework requirements with Ph.D. students but do not take the Comprehensive or Qualifying exams. A Master’s thesis is required.