Over the course of a quarter, students in FRSC 202 put in a minimum of 60 hours working in the crops unit orchard located right off Highland Avenue.
Laura Wilkinson
Special to Mustang News
Though Cal Poly students attend the second-largest land holding university in the state and one of the largest in the nation, for many, daily campus experiences have nothing to do with land, food or animals.
“Labs” are indoor affairs spent in front of 27-inch iMacs or tinkering with complex machinery. They Learn By Doing indoors, in the temperature-controlled comfort of their design labs and architecture studios, only remembering the true nature of their campus when a professor makes the occasional joke about “winds blowing the wrong way.”
And they continue on like this, all the way to graduation, until they’re walking across the stage and accepting their diplomas.
But it doesn’t have to be that way.
For those who have the desire and the room in their schedules, there are classes available without prerequisites to experience how the other side — or roughly one-fifth of the undergraduate student body — live.
FSN 200: For the chocolate lover
This class is listed as “Special Problems for Undergraduates.” The name might be bland, but the sweet reality is that it’s actually Cal Poly’s notorious chocolate production class.
One hour each week is spent in lecture, learning about the history and chemistry of cocoa, the social justice issues surrounding it and all the yummy variations.
Five hours a week (broken into two two-and-a-half-hour chunks) is devoted entirely to production.
According to professor Tom Neuhaus, students learn how to temper and work with the chocolate mostly on a small scale, such as at bakeries or restaurants. They make everything from chocolate cups, to truffles, to mousse.
Exposure to large-scale packaging and production occurs in the background, as they get to observe Cal Poly Chocolate’s $45,000 production machine in action — a contraption able to crank out more than 300 chocolate bars an hour.
“Everything goes to sale to the bookstore, the downtown store and wherever else Cal Poly chocolate is sold,” Neuhaus said. “But of course, there are always the bits and pieces of candy that fall on the floor or are deformed, and those are for eating.”
Nutrition senior Garrett Morris can attest to that.
“Yes, everything tastes really good,” Morris said. “But it’s not as glamorous the whole time as some might imagine. We aren’t having food fights with liquid chocolate or anything.”
All Willy Wonka fantasies aside, Cal Poly Chocolates production manager Sarah Adams said the class is a good balance of big industry techniques and finer hand skills, and is worth the time of anyone interested.
FRSC 202: For the green thumb
This two-unit, for-credit enterprise project is a big step away from the traditional classroom model.
There are no tests or homework and students meet just one hour a week for lecture. The rest of the time is spent in the field.
Over the course of a quarter, students put in a minimum of 60 hours working in the crops unit orchard located right off Highland Avenue.
There, under the guidance of professor Lauren Garner, they get a broad education in orchard management.
“We drive the tractor, set gopher traps, prune trees, pick fruit and have a stand at the Thursday night farmers market,” Garner said.
Garner also said class experiences would vary. Orchard work varies greatly depending on the season and what fruits are available during those months.
Students in FRSC 202 get a broad education in orchard management.
The harvest-calendar savvy already know spring quarter means peaches, grapefruit and navel, Valencia and blood oranges. Fall’s focus is walnuts, avocados, persimmons, quince, table grapes, apples, pears and figs.
But fruits aren’t for everyone.
Those interested in testing their green thumb might prefer the vegetable science or organic farming enterprises. According to Garner, they’re structured exactly the same way, but students get to actively participate in the growing process from seedling to mature crop, unlike in the orchard where trees are already in the ground.
All three classes are offered every quarter.
FSN 121: For the aspiring chef
A “Fundamentals of Food” class, this course is required as a base for all nutrition students and teaches a broad toolkit of cooking abilities.
Lecture is spent learning about the food groups and ideal portion sizes. Students gather in the kitchen to put their food knowledge to the test, practicing sautéing, frying, poaching, simmering, braising and more for three hours each week.
Professor Arlene Grant-Holcomb said though the course does have a focus on nutrition, not everything they cook is healthy.
“We cook with butter and cream and all that,” Grant-Holcomb said.
She described eggplant crepes filled with feta cheese, red bell peppers and zucchini; and tofu mushroom veggie burgers as being some of the most favored recipes.
“I often tell my students to either eat a light lunch before coming in, or to skip it if they prefer, because they always have something to eat after class,” Grant-Holcomb said.
Grant-Holcomb said she’s gotten good feedback from non-majors, especially engineers.
“It’s different from the kinds of things they’re expected to do in their regular classes, yet it’s also very scientific and has practical application,” Grant-Holcomb said.
The chances of getting into this class are best during spring quarter. While non-majors won’t be able to enroll directly through PASS, students can get permission numbers by emailing Grant-Holcomb.
DSCI 230: For the cattle curious
For those who’ve wondered exactly what goes on at the campus dairy (or if you’re thinking, “Wait — what? We have a dairy?”), Intro to Dairy Husbandry gives a first look at this industry’s practices and procedures.
Six hours a week are spent delving into the details of dairy. Three of those are blocked together for a lab spent on-site in the dairy unit doing everything from milking cows and caring for calves, to evaluating (read: eating) dairy products.
Professor Leanne Berning said the majority of students who take this class usually have never touched a cow before, but by the end of the quarter, they become very familiar with the 1,600-pound animals that dwell on the property.
One of the labs includes preparing an artificial vagina and collecting a bull’s semen sample for artificial insemination.
“It happens pretty fast,” Berning said. “The students always say ‘Is that it? Is that all?’”
She also described the milking lab as a fun one for the class, as students often get competitive about how much milk they can get out of their cow.
“Of course they have nothing to do with it; it just depends on where they are in their lactation cycle,” Berning said. “But it’s part of what makes the class so neat. People interact and mix together in a way that you could never do just sitting next to them in a lecture.”
The four-unit class is offered every quarter.
RPTA 112: For the outdoorsy type
Hiking at Montana de Oro, kayaking and bird watching are just a few of the activities students who enroll in this parks and outdoor recreation course will participate in each week.
According to professor Marni Goldenberg, the four-unit class is designed to “teach different outdoor skills in a bunch of different outdoor spaces.”
In addition to getting outside and getting active, students will learn about California’s recreational parks from the people who know them best. The lecture component is set up so speakers from the national and regional parks fields have time to come in and talk to students about their positions and current opportunities.
“Last spring, John Roth, the chief ranger of Lassen National Park, came in and was really encouraging to students about getting involved in national parks,” Goldenberg said. “Because we don’t have a national park here in SLO, it was really nice to get that different perspective.”
Recreation, parks and tourism administration (RPTA) senior Blake Lopez said one of his favorite trips was visiting the Point San Luis Lighthouse in Avila Beach.
“Our group was led by a local docent who was able to tell us all about the natural area and the surrounding flora and fauna,” Goldenberg said.
There are no prerequisites for Parks and Outdoor Recreation. But for those who want to take their love of nature further — and overnight — there is Outdoor and Adventure Leadership (RPTA 325).
As a 300-level course, each student is expected to have a solid foundation of leadership skills. This is necessary because students will get to plan one weekend-long trip a quarter, overseeing the outing from the brainstorming stage all the way to execution.
“When I took the class, we went to Lake San Antonio and we kayaked out to our camping spots carrying all our gear on our kayaks,” Lopez said. “The first night out by the lake, literally the biggest shooting star I’ve ever seen came by; it was the size of the moon in the sky, and it was really awesome.”
If a student is interested in this course, they should contact Goldenberg for information on how to alternatively meet prerequisites.
Editor’s note: This story was originally titled “5 classes you didn’t know you could take next quarter.” Some of the classes, however, are not offered next quarter, and the title has been changed.