Students have the opportunity this week to take an online survey that could benefit their learning experience at Cal Poly and provide the university with information to make improvements.
The survey, held every 10 years by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC) will be online until Feb. 26, and student answers will help determine the accreditation status of different colleges and allow students to give input on issues related to their major and career choices.
The survey has four sections: curriculum, co-curriculum, on campus employment and off campus employment. The school wants to research these areas to see what students are learning outside of school and what is needed to improve Cal Poly’s learning process.
Furthermore, the survey will review each major and concentration, which can help the school make real improvements, architecture professor and director of the WASC survey Bruno Giberti said.
“The survey is focused on trying to use the resources that we have to provide Cal Poly student’s with the best kind of education that we can,” he said. “The whole point of the exercise is to improve the education that you receive here.”
Students played a large role in designing the survey. Associated Students Inc. helped design the survey while focus groups looked for problems debated whether see if the questions were relevant to them, he said.
ASI President Angela Kramer, who oversaw the creation of the survey, said she made sure the structure and format would be easy to understand and the overall layout effective.
“The WASC team asked some students from student government to help them make it student-friendly, and we wanted to make sure the questions were understandable and that they would get the answers to the questions they were looking for,” Kramer said.
The two-part survey is also designed to get feedback from students about subjects connected to Cal Poly, specifically how students declare a major.
“I really like the survey and for what they’re trying to accomplish, and a good quality of education in regards to diversity and getting the most out of the programs they’re a part of,” Kramer said. “I think it’s really accurate and applicable to students of all colleges and majors.”
Many students invest time and effort in other extracurricular activities that take time and involvement off campus, and a whole new learning process is developed there. The school wants to understand how that will affect a student’s experience at Cal Poly, Giberti added.
“We realize that we really don’t have any hard information about what Cal Poly students do other than going to class,” he said. “There’s a whole variety of experiences students have within the curriculum that we don’t know about.”