Alumni Overview

In the early 1900's, when Scripps Institution of Oceanography was known as the Biological Station, in La Jolla, William E. Ritter said, "How big is this station likely to be...my ambition for it...is that it should be great rather than big."

Now, more than a hundred years later, 1,449 students have received their degrees for work done at Scripps, one of the oldest, largest, and most important centers for global ocean and earth science research and graduate training in the world.

• 1,067students (74%) received a PhD degree, with 155 of those students obtaining a master's degree along the way
• 382 students were recipients of a master's degree alone
• 1,122 students were male
• 327 students were female
• 289 students (20%) entered as citizens of one of 46 nations. The largest group entered from Canada, followed by the Republic of China, and Germany

Scripps is proud of the accomplishments of our alumni, both individually and collectively. One measure of our success can be found in the quality of our graduates. Scripps alumni are national and international leaders in the ocean, earth and atmospheric sciences. As an example, among the group we have:

• 58 directors of scientific laboratories/programs/organizations
• One college president, four deans, and 13 academic department heads/chairs
• 21 company presidents
• Three CEOs and nine company vice presidents
• One Naval commander
• One astronaut

Scripps alumni who chose a non-science related career have also adopted our standard of excellence. Among this group we have:

• Attorneys
• Physicians
• A successful novelist
• Two wine vintners

The graphs that follow are a compilation of data collected from 924 Scripps alumni who responded to our request for information. Of those who responded;

• 83% were Ph.D. recipients
• 17% were master's degree recipients.