The UPLB Graduate School: Some Notable Achievements
The UPLB Graduate School was established on 21 December 1972 to administer all graduate programs of the campus. At present, it offers 92 graduate degree programs, including the Straight PhD and PhD by Research programs. At present, only the UPLB Graduate School offers the MS in Wildlife Studies program in the country. Also, there are some areas of specialization in botany (plant systematics) and entomology (systematics, acarology and aphidology) which are unique to UPLB.
UPLB has strong graduate programs in Environmental Science, Community Development, Development Communications, Forestry, Agricultural Economics, and Agricultural Engineering, among others that consistently have a high rate of enrollment.
About 40% of those conferred graduate degrees at UPLB came from foreign countries. Many of them were from Asia, such as Thailand, Indonesia, Nepal, Bangladesh, Vietnam and China and many specialized along the areas of Agronomy, Agricultural Economics, Forestry, Nutrition Planning, Community Development, Animal Science and Soil Science. Many of these graduates are now holding key positions in their respective countries and are now in the forefront of development initiatives, policy formulation and implementation.
The UPLB Graduate School is a founding member of the Southeast Asian University Consortium for Graduate Education in Agriculture and Natural Resources, launched on September 1989 through the initiative of SEARCA to foster collaborative efforts to enhance graduate education in agriculture, environment and natural resources in the region. As such, it shares resources and expertise, and engages in student/faculty exchange, and research fellowships with other members of the consortium namely Institut Pertanian Bogor (Indonesia), Universitas Gadjah Mada (Indonesia), Universiti Pertanian Malaysia, Kasetsart University (Thailand), University of Queensland (Australia), University of British Columbia (Canada) and Tokyo University of Agriculture (Japan).