A p-adic symmetric space is a variety which emerges from a p-adic algebraic group equipped with an involution. In this talk, we will look at some basic examples and properties of p-adic symmetric spaces. In particular, I will try to convince you that many properties and results in the group setting have analogues in the symmetric space setting which allow one to recover the original result, and I will briefly discuss a result of Hakim and Murnaghan which uses symmetric spaces to prove a result about representations of p-adic groups. Speaker(s): Jacob Haley (UM)