Breadcrumb
First-year Learning Communities
Exploring a specific theme through multidisciplinary courses, making connections, and gaining a sense of belonging are at the heart of these year-long learning communities.
If you take part in one, you’ll participate in hands-on activities with your peers before classes even start and in some cases, have the opportunity to live in the same residence halls with your peers. You'll get to register for classes with seats reserved for PBLC students to help you snag a spot in first-year classes that count toward your degree. With the support of a built-in network of faculty and student mentors, you will learn to navigate college life, all while making new friends and being more prepared for your future studies at Cal Poly Humboldt.
Our Communities
Eligibility: Biology, Botany, and Zoology
Students explore the biodiversity of coastal redwood forests and prairies– sampling microbes, identifying plants, and detecting cryptic mammals– and learn how the Wiyot and Yurok tribes have interacted with these species and ecosystems since time immemorial.
Eligibility: Environmental Resources Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Energy Systems Engineering
Students are introduced to engineering design within the Baduwa’t (Mad River) Watershed. They will explore water quality, river restoration, renewable energy and other local design solutions addressing global issues.
Eligibility: Critical Race, Gender & Sexuality Studies, Kinesiology, Psychology, and Social Work
Students will learn ways to bring issues from their classes into every aspect of the real world. Each course builds and expands upon what they already know and believe — their roots— while deepening an appreciation and awareness of justice, liberation, and gain career development opportunities along the way.
Eligibility: Art, Dance, Film, Music, and Theater Arts
Students are introduced to art resources on campus and in the wider Humboldt community including public art, galleries, museums and local arts non-profits through field trips and hands-on learning opportunities. Students are offered guaranteed enrollment in studio art and art history classes.
Eligibility: Dreamscapes is open for first-year students who are interested in social and political change and are not already in a major-based Place-Based Learning Community. Interested students can apply to join this community.
Students will explore the problems of today from the perspective that radical change is possible. Students will build connections on campus and out in the community.
Eligibility: Child Development and Education
Students will discover how learning about issues of education and social justice today, can shape futures tomorrow. All of the handpicked instructors believe in the same goal: making the schooling experience equitable and empowering for all students.
Eligibility: Undeclared
Global Humboldt is for any first year students who are still figuring out what their major will be. This “globally” themed learning community offers students an interdisciplinary introduction to that world.
Eligibility: Business
Students will create relationships in a cohort environment focused on the global green revolution that seeks to balance the needs of people, the planet, and profits. They will explore ways to create a more sustainable future and gain career development opportunities along the way.
Eligibility: Healthy Humboldt is for first-year students who are interested in pre-medical pathways or who are interested in health and well-being and are not already in a major-based Place-Based Learning Community.
Students can choose to be a part of this program to learn how to support a healthy and thriving community. They will learn about opportunities within physical therapy, health advocacy, nursing, and dentistry from professionals and health advocates in their fields.
Eligibility: Applied Fire Science & Management, Environmental Science & Management, Fisheries Biology, Forestry, Rangeland Resource Science, and Wildlife
Students explore environmental and social justice issues associated with the region, including conflicts over water rights, natural resource conservation, and issues affecting the Yurok and Karuk communities.
Eligibility: People & Planet is open for first-year students who are interested in intersectional environmentalism and are not already in a major-based Place-Based Learning Community. Interested students can apply to join this community.
Students can choose to be a part of this program to learn how sustainability is local and global, while addressing specific case studies in fields like agriculture, clean energy, and climate justice. They will explore how animals, plants, and human beings are all interconnected while learning how to build and support a sustainable future.
Eligibility: Computer Science, Data Science, Geospatial Science & Technology, Mathematics, and Software Engineering
Students explore a variety of concepts to help to understand and represent the world around us and all of our different realities -- and to use these to better solve problems.
Eligibility: Marine Biology and Oceanography
Students will compare both the cultures and marine life in Humboldt & Trinidad Bays. These two marine environments allow students to explore how the Wiyot Tribe and Trinidad Rancheria have interacted with these ecosystems alongside social and environmental policy in both areas.
Eligibility: Biochemistry, Chemistry, Geology, Physical Science, and Physics
Students explore the interdisciplinary nature of their majors, and how they can't become an expert in one without understanding the others. Physics describes the forces acting in our universe, shaping the chemical reactions that form the geological matter of our planet.