San Luis Obispo, California, is a city of 44,000 located on the Central Coast on Highway 101, midway between Los Angeles and San Francisco. San Luis Obispo enjoys clear air and a year-round temperate climate.

Cal Poly's 400-acre core campus lies at the northeast edge of town, providing sweeping views of nearby peaks and valleys. To the north, an additional 5,651 acres of campus are devoted to farming, experimental architecture, and other outdoor laboratory study, making Cal Poly's one of the largest campuses in the nation. Students live both on-campus and off.

As a predominantly undergraduate, comprehensive, polytechnic university serving California, the mission of Cal Poly is to discover, integrate, articulate, and apply knowledge. This it does by emphasizing teaching; engaging in research; participating in the various communities, local, state, national, and international, with which it pursues common interests; and where appropriate, providing students with the unique experience of direct involvement with the actual challenges of their disciplines in the United States and abroad.

Cal Poly students gain invaluable first-hand experience both on campus and off. Course work emphasizes a high proportion of lab work, field work, and special assignments culminating in a senior project. On-campus opportunities such as the daily student-run newspaper and real-world agriculture projects make hands-on learning a daily reality. Off campus work with government agencies and major national corporation-for both academic credit and a salary, is available through various programs that include one of the largest cooperative education programs in the western United States.