Graduate Program

Grow Towards Independence

The Department of Chemistry at the University of Southern California is continuously training approximately 200 Ph.D. students in the various areas and disciplines of modern chemistry. For an overview of program requirements and expectations, view the Graduate School Path or read full details in the Graduate Student Handbook. You can apply to our program by following the instructions provided on our Graduate Admission page. The Department distributes a number of Graduate Student Awards every year, and graduate students are involved in several Organizations.

The Graduate Student Handbook provides full details of the requirements and departmental policies for students in the Department of Chemistry. Click here to download the latest version.
Our support package for graduate students is one of the most competitive in the nation. All Ph.D. students will receive the stipend, plus several competitive fellowships that are available for outstanding applicants. There are no tuition charges, and students receive both health and dental insurance coverage. The stipend is covered through either teaching assistantships (TAs) that supervise laboratory work, grade papers, and proctor exams, or research assistantships (RAs) that are funded by grants or by fellowships that allow students to pursue their doctoral research projects conducted with the student’s research mentor.
USC graduate student housing, located adjacent to campus near the USC Village, is available. Information about the housing can be found on the USC housing. If you have any questions, email chemgrad@usc.edu.
As a university campus in an urban center, USC is committed to providing students with a safe educational environment. The USC Department of Public Safety is one of the largest campus safety departments in the US, which deploys public safety officers on campus on in the surrounding community. Additionally, USC provides other safety tools, such as the USC Lyft Rides Program that transports students between buildings on campus or to their local residences. Because of USC’s location in downtown Los Angeles, many students may be surprised to learn that the statistics for safety, as collected by the U.S. Department of Education, show that student-related violent crime at USC is lower than at UCLA, UC Berkeley, and UC San Diego.