Graduate Student Governing Bodies

SEAS GC vs GSC vs HGPSG

How these organizations relate to each other is very similar to how the various schools are structured in relations to each other. In effect, the primary distinction is who their primary audience is.

The SEAS Graduate Council (SEAS GC) aims to serve the graduate student body of the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (both PhD and Masters students). If you’re a student with affiliation with SEAS, then the SEAS GC wants you!

The Graduate Student Council (GSC) is the body of representatives that represents all graduate students affiliated with the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. This happens to include any PhD student at *any* school, including SEAS (and the other Harvard schools too!). However, professional degree students (anything not PhD level degree or a non-GSAS Masters degree) aren’t counted here. This is the organization that charges you $25 on your termbill at the start of every semester, so if you want to know where that money goes then keep up to date on the GSC’s activities!

The Harvard Graduate Council (HGC) is the body of representatives to aims to represent *all* advanced degree candidates across the 12 non-college schools at Harvard. The goal is to support the 12 Harvard Schools with Harvard-wide academic and social programming, as well as a unified point of representation to central administration (or administration at each individual school). The HGC does not have a “home” school (unlike other student councils/governments) and is operated by authority of the Provost’s Office.

How to Get Involved

If you’re interested in participating in the SEAS-GC please contact us at seas-gc@seas.harvard.edu. Biweekly meetings will be held during the academic year and all in SEAS are free to join.

GSC holds monthly meetings during the academic year that all GSAS graduate students receive e-mail based updates on approximately two weeks before each meeting. HGC holds biweekly meetings that are announced the week before each meeting. Meetings for both organizations will be open to all students, as many opportunities for participating will be relayed during the meetings. However, only representatives will be able to formally participate in votes. The SEAS-GC is responsible for sending representatives to both GSC & HGC, so get in touch if you’d like to get involved! Reps are selected at the beginning of the year on a rolling basis.