BACKGROUND: Depression poses a considerable personal and public health problem, particularly in the post-epidemic era. The present study aimed to investigate the association between meaning in life (MIL) and perceived social support (PSS) with depressive symptoms among vocational undergraduate students, employing a network analysis approach to gain a deeper understanding of the underlying pathways and to prevent the progression of depressive symptoms into disorders. METHODS: A total of 1367 Chinese vocational undergraduates ( RESULTS: The top strength nodes within each network were identified as CONCLUSION: These findings elucidate specific pathways and potential central nodes for interactions of MIL or PSS with depressive symptoms at different levels of depression, providing valuable insights for targeted prevention and intervention strategies.