Graduate Student Awards

Help us provide awards to deserving graduate students who exemplify the mission of SDSU!

The SDSU Graduate School has been providing graduate student awards for the past eight years. These awards include Distinguished Master’s Thesis, Excellence in Graduate Student Teaching, Distinguished Dissertation Award, the Three Minute Thesis Competition, and NEW for 2023, the Distinguished Innovation and Creative Work Award. Each of these awards honors distinguished scholarship, research, and teaching at the graduate level, serving as an important means of boosting student confidence and recognizing tenacity and diligence. 

Graduate students look forward to participating in these annual awards and being rewarded monetarily for their hard work. These awards not only provide recognition at SDSU but offer the opportunity to participate in regional- and national-level competitions, which further spotlights top-notch SDSU programming and graduate students. Past award winners have shared how being an awardee has increased their confidence and guided them to glean transferable skills. This type of recognition is invaluable fodder for CVs and resumés, attracting the attention of employers and graduate programs. 

Your donation will be used to fund part or all of these awards:

• $250 – Distinguished Master’s Thesis
• $250 – Excellence in Graduate Student Teaching
• $250 – Distinguished Dissertation
• $250 – Distinguished Innovation and Creative Work
• $250 – 1st place: Three Minute Thesis Competition
• $125 – 2nd place: Three Minute Thesis Competition
• $75 – 3rd place: Three Minute Thesis Competition

For more information about each student award, please visit this link: (https://www.sdstate.edu/graduate-school/awards-and-scholarships).