Cal Poly SLO
Discover Cal Poly’s Learn by Doing methodology while living on the campus and enjoying the gorgeous mountains and coasts of San Luis Obispo.
Campus Overview
Established in 1901, Cal Poly SLO is California's first polytechnic school that launched with its renowned Learn by Doing education. For the last 30 years, it has been named the best public, master's-level university in the West by US News & World Report's annual Best Colleges guidebook.
Cal Poly has one of the largest, most picturesque college campuses in the US and is set between beautiful rolling hills and the Pacific Ocean with perfect weather year-round (they average 315 days of sunshine). San Luis Obispo is consistently ranked in the top 10 happiest towns in the US. It's home to a charming downtown center, award-winning restaurants and a vibrant cultural scene, and outdoor enthusiasts will enjoy SLO's expansive dunes, turquoise waters and adventurous hiking trails.

Residential Tuition:
$4,998
Grade Eligibility:
Entering 9th-12th
June 23, 2024 July 5, 2024
July 7, 2024 July 19, 2024
Cal Poly - San Luis Obispo
Cal Poly SLO - San Luis Obispo, CA
Testimonials
Academic Courses
At Summer Springboard @ Cal Poly we believe learning should be inspiring and interactive. We have worked hard to design courses, field trips and guest lectures that reflect the resources of the San Luis Obispo area. Whenever possible, classes are held outdoors, on-site or in a lab-type setting to allow students as many ’hands on’ opportunities as possible. Field trips and guest speakers take the learning experience beyond the classroom and leverage all that San Luis Obispo has to offer.
In addition to our academic morning courses, students spend the afternoon either in electives (i.e. Public Speaking, Creative Writing, Athletics, College Prep and Photography) or doing our True You program which explores elements of one's real self including strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities.
Coding & Web Design

With so many different platforms on which audiences are able to view websites, it’s important for aspiring web designers to consider how to create responsive and accessible websites. In this course, students will use a variety of web development production tools and processes, following the best practices in the industry, to build websites that can be used for as many people as possible, using as many devices as possible without modification.
Branding & Graphic Design at Cal Poly

In this course, students interested in designing a brand will get a chance to use programs like Adobe Creative to translate their big branding ideas into a physical product that will entice consumers to engage with their new brand.
Aspiring brand designers will learn how to compose a style guide for their new brand.
Once the brand has been conceived and designed, students will get to work printing, converting, and finishing their design to make into something tangible that their target consumers will get to interact with in the marketplace.
Throughout this course, students will learn how to recognize elements associated with a brand’s graphical and physical parts, think Nike’s swoosh, Supreme’s red rectangular logo, and McDonald’s golden arches.
Digital Advertising & Social Media Storytelling

Are you interested in the impact and design of digital public relations and advertising storytelling? From video commercials, content marketing, social media advertising, influencer marketing, to billboards and sponsorships — advertising and public relations messages are everywhere! This course is designed to provide students with an understanding about the marketplace of attention and create effective narratives of their own creation. Students will be exposed to higher level thinking as media consumers and have the opportunity to test their theories by designing and producing a strategic communications campaign, a video commercial, and social media content for a fictional client.
Gender, Race & Culture

Are you interested in learning how you can make an impact in the world? Are you considering a career that is focused on creating a more compassionate, equitable, inclusive, and less violent world? This course is focused on Women, Gender and Queer studies, social justice and the multitude of professions within the Liberal Arts and Humanities discipline.
Through writing assignments, class discussions and a final group presentation, students will explore and engage with concepts that encourage critical thinking about identities, diversity, equity and a vision for a world aimed at reducing, preventing and eliminating harm.
Marketing Bootcamp

This course is THE course for any student who is interested in starting their own online business. In this course students will learn how to create a campaign to market products in any industry of their choosing. In this marketing bootcamp, students will cover all of the core concepts of marketing. They will begin with the creative process (ideation), discuss all of the various distribution channels to market their product, create their consumer persona, determine what the Total Available Market (TAM) size is for their business, and perform the necessary targeting analytics. Their work will culminate in producing some highly personalized marketing materials using Adobe InDesign and variable data/personalization campaigns.
Judicial Politics & the Supreme Court

In the program at Cal Poly SLO, students will focus on the current American judicial politics involving the U.S. Supreme Court. This course cover the internal politics of the legal profession, examine law school admissions and teaching methodologies; issues and challenges within the profession; explore how judges are selected; analyze the economic realities of dispute resolution; and, the influences of judicial decisions, with particular attention on the U.S. Supreme Court.
Printing & Graphic Design

Have you ever wondered how to transfer one of your favorite animation characters into stickers, magnets, or tote bags? Do you wonder what makes the dashboard glow in the car? Students with an interest in graphic design and printing may wonder how colors are printed on t-shirts or how a large-scale Star Wars vinyl wrap was applied to a building or bus?
This course will link a student’s daily experience with tangible printing and graphic embellishments. By the end of this class, students will be comfortable designing for digital printing technologies, and will produce a laser cut LED lamp, notepads with varnish sleek foil stamp, a t-shirt, a canvas poster, a bag or hat, and buttons or stickers using their own designs. In this course, students will experience a wholistic experience of the design and reproduction workflow from ideation, prototyping, iteration, and production.
Podcast Media & Business

Podcasts have become one of the most popular forms of audio entertainment. Unlike radio and TV shows, podcasts are an accessible way for aspiring content creators to connect with an audience. Students in this class will acquire and apply the skills needed to write, produce, edit, distribute, market, and even monetize a podcast. During the program, students will work in a hands-on lab writing and producing their own podcast pilot and episodes.
UX Design at Cal Poly

People are viewing their digital media content across a multitude of platforms these days. Today’s UX designers are trained to understand how to design webpages and digital media to easily adapt to the wide variety of devices and platforms that exist in the marketplace. With a focus on a more inclusive mobile user experience, students will learn current technologies and production tools used for the mobile user interface design and prototyping that will expand accessibility for a diverse end-user audience. Students will also learn to apply design principles and ethical considerations to the decision-making process to design the best user experience for mobile digital products. They will spend a majority of their time in the Cal Poly labs using Figma while creating mock mobile web pages that easily function across multiple device platforms.
Activities & Trips
Located right off Highway 101 on the beautiful Central Coast of California, students will get a chance to experience why the laid-back locals of San Luis Obispo (known by most as "SLO" and pronounced "slow") consider it to be one of the happiest cities in the US. With over 80 miles of dramatic California coastline, awe-inspiring green landscapes, stunning rolling hills and vistas, students will get to experience why learning by doing at Cal Poly attracts tens of thousands of students every year.
San Luis Obispo, CA
There are are nearly 23,000 students who attend Cal Poly SLO in a town of 269,000 people. The campus is home to 6 different colleges that are focused on Cal Poly's Learn by Doing ethos. The campus has 9,178 acres of land and is the 2nd largest campus in California and one of the largest in the nation. San Luis Obispo is on California's famous Highway 1, halfway between Los Angeles and San Francisco. The city lies in a town nestled between rolling hills and the California coast. SLO, as it's commonly known, enjoys a perfect Mediterranean climate year-round that runs on average around 70 degrees F, with mild and pleasant summers. The town is sheltered by volcanic peaks and surrounded by protected open spaces, vineyards, agriculture, and ranch land. Students will enjoy access to mountain trails for hiking, the nearby Morro Bay beaches for kayaking and paddleboarding, and the infamous SLO Farmer's Market in downtown.
Morro Bay
Known as the Gibraltar of the Pacific, Morro Bay is a neighboring coastal city that is known for a giant rock formation called the Morro Rock ("Morro" is Spanish for "hill"). The rock sits within Morro Bay State Park and is home to lagoons, trails and a bird-rich saltwater marsh. It is home to excellent beaches and a number of tourist attractions along the shoreline and the streets closest to the Embarcadero, including restaurants, shops and parks.
Ravine Water Park
Ravine Water Park in beautiful Paso Robles, CA featuring the Calypso Bay wave pool, winding lazy river, and a bunch of super fun water slides like the 7-story high Thunder Run and the Quadzilla, a 5-story supersponic liquid track to help students beat the summer heat!
Track-Specific Excursions
Each academic course may also take subject matter specific excursions to help round out the student experience. Excursions may include: touring local businesses, meeting local law enforcement, exploring the Cal Poly student-managed commercial printing and digital enterprise, University Graphic Systems (UGS), visiting the Robert F. Kennedy Library, and more.
Student Life
Your home with Summer Springboard @ Cal Poly will be actual university dormitories located on the edge of this vibrant and beautiful campus.
Housing
Just like a college student at Cal Poly, students share a dorm room with roommates and use a common bathroom. Floors are gender-segregated and rooms contain an extra-long twin size bed, desks, drawers, mirror and a closet.
Your Resident Advisor (RA) will live on your hall to create a community, provide support, plan activities and help you get the most out of your stay at Cal Poly. Other members of the Summer Springboard staff also live on campus and are available to support students and tackle emergencies, 24 hours a day.
Security
All dormitories have 24-hour security and uses electronic keys to enter each building and dorm room. University security is on 24-hour patrol and available to any student that may need assistance during the Cal Poly summer program for high school students.
Facilities
Your dormitory is part of a complex of buildings around a courtyard. Each building has laundry facilities, lounges and high speed wireless internet throughout.
The university is committed to providing a healthy, smoke-free environment for students, faculty and staff. Accordingly, no smoking is permitted in student rooms or inside buildings, including lounges and balconies.
Dining
Cal Poly Campus Dining is focused on serving a variety of delicious options to fuel our campus community. You’ll find everything from authentic Mexican to Mongolian rice bowls to good ol’ American flavors. Whatever you are in the mood for, you’ll get the extra satisfaction knowing that Campus Dining is committed to local fresh sourcing and other sustainable practices.
Breakfast
Academic Course
Lunch
Recreational Activity or Academic Excursion
Enrichment Elective
Dinner
Evening Activities
Check-In
This program is run in partnership with Cal Poly Extended Education. Instructors are Cal Poly faculty and provide access to the same facilities that Cal Poly students enjoy.