On our return from our college visit trip
to LA a couple of weeks ago, we stopped at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. The most selective of the CSU campuses, Cal
Poly enrols approximately 19,000 students with about 4,500 students per
undergraduate class.
Touring the campus with Theresa, a current
first year architecture student, gave us an inside view of the university as
well as her particular experience in the “Living Learning Program,” a unique
opportunity for students to combine their educational and social lives through
their campus housing.
We met Theresa at her residence hall, one
of the six “Red Brick” dormitories, which comprise the “Living Learning
Program.” Theresa lives in “Sequoia,” a residence of 270 students, 90 per
floor, all of whom are enrolled in the same academic program as she is. She lives in a double on an all women’s
hall. Her room (11’x13’x9’) is
well-maintained, spacious enough for a bed, dresser, wardrobe, three drawer
filing cabinet, desk and mini-fridge. It
is functional rather than aesthetic.
Some of the rooms on the hall are triples, the same sized room which,
amazingly, fit enough furniture for three students. When we passed through the spacious, clean
common rooms, they were in use by small clusters of students, some of whom
appeared to be studying, while others were socializing. The whole atmosphere was comfortable and
low-key.
Theresa explained that most classroom
buildings on campus also belong to a particular program or major such as
business or engineering though a certain percentage of general education classes
are held in each location. The
architecture program is located near the engineering quad and contains large
studios where each quarter she is assigned a “space” along with about 40 other
students in her class.
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| Theresa in her design studio |
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| Classroom building for architecture |
She has 24/7 access to the studio and this
is where she completes a lot of her design projects. Each quarter this year she takes two general
education courses and the rest of her academic schedule is devoted to her
architecture study/studio work. In the
fall her composition class had only about 20 students and her physics course
there were about 20 students. This
winter quarter she is enrolled in big lecture survey courses of between 100-200
students each. She is really enjoying
both of these survey courses, art history and architectural history as they
relate directly to her major.
Theresa described a couple of the benefits
of Cal Poly’s five-year architecture program: in her fourth year she will have
a hands-on internship, which could be in an international location like
Copenhagen or Switzerland. As part of a
pilot program, this year she has been paired with a peer mentor, a third year
student in the architecture program who gives her advice about coursework,
summer jobs and other topics.
Social life for Theresa is pretty low
key. We toured the nearby town of San
Luis Obispo (close enough to walk to but there is also a shuttle), where we ate
lunch in a inexpensive deli-type restaurant.
There are numerous other casual restaurants and coffee shops, chain
stores for clothing and other goods, a movie theatre. Theresa has made friends
with her roommate and with other students in her program/residence hall. The program-based housing appears to be both
an academic and social benefit for her.
Overall, I was favorably impressed by Cal
Poly’s campus and by Theresa’s experience in the Living Learning Program.
Also, it’s a good idea to visit some
schools that may only moderately interest or attract your student as during the
year between junior and senior spring, young people’s ideas and attitudes can
evolve quite a bit.