Our Founding, Your Future

Since 1901, Cal Poly and Learn by Doing have been inextricably linked. Combining rigorous academics and real-world applications, Learn by Doing has guided and inspired hundreds of thousands of our students toward successful careers for well over a century — and can do the same for you well into your future.

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California Impact

Learn by Doing ensures you play an active role in helping solve some of California’s — and the world’s — most complex challenges: climate change, tech and humanity, space, the built environment, food and wine, and entrepreneurship, to name just a few. It also helps to ensure that when you graduate, both you and employers will agree with us that you are ready.

The Digital Democracy team sitting together for a photo.

Democracy Now

Digital Democracy, created at Cal Poly and operated in partnership with nonprofit newsroom CalMatters, recently won an Emmy for political reporting.

Read About the Team

A wildfire burning along a hillside at night.

Fighting Fire with Floods

An interdisciplinary team of Cal Poly researchers created an innovative guide to help communities reduce their wildfire risk.

Dive into their work

A gloved hand holding a Petrie dish filled with bacteria.

Back to the Future

A biochemistry team is searching for the antibiotics of the future — by looking millions of years into the past.

Travel Through Time

Learn by Doing Leads the way

Cal Poly’s six academic colleges offer more than 150 undergraduate majors and minors, as well as over 50 graduate programs. Learn by Doing unifies our colleges and animates the curriculum of each — because no matter the field of study, the best way to build new knowledge is to try it out for yourself.