About

The Cal Poly Architecture Summer Career Workshop is a four-week, in-residence program at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo's College of Architecture and Environmental Design, designed for high school students considering architecture as a field of study. The program runs Monday through Saturday and covers design fundamentals — light and shadow, space and sequence, texture, materiality, and climate — alongside computer applications, structural engineering, and site and community planning. Studios and lectures are led by Cal Poly architecture faculty and professional guests, with individual studios of approximately 15 students guided by recent Cal Poly graduates working in the profession. No prior design experience is required. All students produce a portfolio of work over the four weeks that can be used for college applications in architecture and related fields.

Registration is first-come, first-served rather than competitive — spots are claimed upon registration and payment, not through an admissions review process. The program also exposes students to related fields within Cal Poly's CAED, including architectural engineering, landscape architecture, city and regional planning, and construction management, framing architecture as one discipline within a broader built-environment ecosystem. Career and education advising are integrated throughout. A final gallery exhibition on the last day is open to families.

Cal Poly's architecture program is one of the most respected in the country for its "learn by doing" philosophy, and the Summer Career Workshop reflects that pedagogy directly — students work in actual studio environments with the same faculty who teach Cal Poly's five-year BArch program. For students on the West Coast who are seriously weighing architecture as a path, the workshop offers an accessible, affordable, and intensive introduction to how architecture is actually taught at one of the field's most hands-on programs.