What is UCSF Synapse?

Updated

UCSF Synapse is the school newspaper of the University of California, San Francisco. Its site, synapse.ucsf.edu, publishes student journalism and creative work for the UCSF community, and it is primarily a reading site: articles, columns, poetry, and fiction rather than a service portal or database.

What you'll find on the site

The homepage is organized around an Editor's Pick and a Latest Stories feed. Content spans several distinct categories, which is useful to know if you are looking for a specific type of piece:

  • News and campus life — student life coverage, orientation programming, and campus events.
  • Opinion, ethics, and politics — commentary on research ethics, international agreements, and health policy.
  • History — a recurring "This Date in UCSF History" column that reprints and revisits items from the Synapse archive, such as a September 29, 1983 piece on genetic engineering.
  • Poetry and fiction — creative writing, including contest winners.
  • Health and science features — reported pieces on topics like dentistry, early detection, and health economics.

Articles carry a byline and a date, so you can tell student-written current work from archived reprints. For example, "A Thursday in Trivandrum" is dated September 29, 2026 and credited to Payal Hegde, while the history column under the same date is credited to Synapse and marked as originally published in 1983.

Who it's for

The intended audience is the UCSF community — students, faculty, and staff — but the site is openly readable, so prospective students, alumni, and anyone interested in UCSF campus perspectives can read it too. The mix of reported journalism and creative writing means it works both as a news source and as a place to see student voices.

If you want to write for it

Synapse accepts submissions. The homepage includes a "Submit an Article" call to action stating that UCSF is always looking for new people to write and share articles, and it points readers to the publication's Instagram account, @ucsf_synapse, for updates. If you are a UCSF student with a story, essay, or poem, that submission route is the place to start.

What it is not

Synapse is a publication, not an administrative or clinical resource. It does not provide patient information, appointment booking, or academic records. Treat it as a newspaper: read it for campus news, student perspective, and creative work.