Hamster fun and information

Meet the student firefighters protecting California

Three portraits of student firefighters wearing yellow helmets and jackets while holding hand tools

The Firefighters of Crew 7

The U.S. Forest Service hand crew — which includes students and alumni from different majors — develops leadership and technical skills while tackling wildfires across California. Trace its roots back 50 years to the senior project that blazed a trail for hundreds of careers.

Meet the crew

An illustrated medal with a photo of triathlete Taylor Spivey

Parisian Prowess

Taylor Spivey (Architecture ’14) competed in her first Olympic Games this summer in Paris, earning a silver medal in the mixed triathlon relay and 10th place in the women’s triathlon.

Two students use handtools in a lush green garden

Cal Poly’s Backyard

Take a walk through the Leaning Pine Arboretum. Its global gardens are thriving thanks to year-round care from faculty and student horticulturalists.

Students sorting artifacts on a shaker screen with the title Hands-On Archaeology

Digging Deeper

Nearly 100 years ago, a Japanese American family was forced to leave their farmstead near Point Buchon for an incarceration camp. Cal Poly students in an archaeological field methods course excavated the site, unearthing artifacts alongside the family’s descendants in a moving, full-circle moment.