What does a research university mean to you?
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Visit our YouTube channel!The College of Natural and Agricultural Sciences(CNAS) is home to world-renowned scholars pursuing research that deepens our knowledge of the universe we live in and improves the quality of life for inhabitants of the state, the nation, and the globe. Inextricably bound up with this research is educating the students who come to CNAS to learn science, and who leave with an integrated grasp of how they can change the world. These students, and the faculty who teach them, benefit from a structure that is unique among land-grant colleges: CNAS’s 13 departments encompass the life, physical, mathematical, and agricultural sciences. This administrative unity encourages an extraordinary degree of collaboration, reflected in the 10 interdisciplinary research centers and the many cooperatively taught degree programs. Modern science is team based, and CNAS embodies that principle in everything it teaches and practices.
Jacob Good presents his research progress to faculty and other students in the Deans Summer Fellows program.
The University of California, Riverside is classified as an RU/VH (Research university/very high research activity) by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, which categorizes all colleges and universities in the U.S. What does this mean to you, as an incoming undergraduate?
Superior faculty
The faculty in the College of Natural and Agricultural
Sciences are all top-notch scholars and researchers in their fields. Every
professor holds a Ph.D. degree—a doctorate that has been earned through
independent 
research that has contributed new knowledge to the scientific field
in which they specialize. They are evaluated periodically on the basis of the
quality of their research, the quality of their teaching, and the extent of
their public service.
Depth and breadth of course offerings
CNAS faculty teach all levels of classes, from introductory freshmen courses to intermediate major courses to advanced seminars. The wide extent of our faculty’s expertise means that CNAS students can select from a broad range of course offerings at all levels. Professors that are actively engaged in research, such as CNAS faculty, refresh their teaching content constantly to reflect the most recent developments in the field, and they use examples from their own laboratories to illustrate their message.
Opportunities to engage in research
About half of all CNAS undergraduates engage in research experience
outside of coursework, whether in laboratory or field 
work, as part of a
faculty member’s research group. Introductory positions may be volunteer, with
actual paid internships following as the student gains proficiency. Many
undergraduates have actually co-authored research papers as a result of their
work. Graduate and professional schools look favorably upon this kind of
experience.
State-of-the-art training
The large amount of research activity that the CNAS faculty engage in means that equipment and facilities in the college are as good as, if not better than, any institution in the country. The college’s so-called “core facilities”—campus laboratories that are equipped with instrumentation to serve a variety of research needs—are considered without peer in Southern California. This means that students are learning on up-to-date, state-of-the-art equipment and will be able to make an easy transition to industry or graduate school.
