College Campus Tour - Cal Poly, SLO

My daughter heads to college in less than two years. (Talk about time flying! Seems like only yesterday she was a little girl...) As a good and caring father, I'm making it my US News & World Report inspired duty to take her on as many university campus visits as possible. So far, we've tied our tours to family vacations, meaning she's seen schools in California and on the East Coast.

She loved the manicured lawns of Harvard and the ivy-covered brown buildings at Brown (ivy, brown, get it? She did.) There was the giant button sculpture at U Penn, and the orange V's spray painted on every street surrounding the University of Virginia. There was Stanford's Rodin sculpture garden, the Campanile tower at UC Berkeley, the Theodore Geisel (Dr. Seuss) library at UC San Diego, and Goleta beach mere footsteps from UCSB.

She was nice enough to oblige me with a visit to my undergraduate alma mater, Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo. I was happy, it's a great school. And if nothing else, the visit would be a trip down memory lane... except for one thing...

Since when do dorms get a swimming pool? And who put a rock climbing wall outside the U.U.?

Cal Poly has changed, for sure. When I was in school, the dorm rooms were like one-window prison cells, only worse - we shared a toilet down the hall. (Weird Al Yankovic recorded his parody, My Balogna, in a Cal Poly dorm bathroom.) The new dorms are like a residence hotel. Multiple bedrooms, a living room, bathroom(s), windows everywhere, a kitchen for making moist banana bread snacks or even a full meal. (There's a grill outside for steaks or marinated asparagus.) I wouldn't be surprised if every room came pre-installed with Wii.

Outside, built into the new dorm complex, there's a Jamba Juice (the founders attended Cal Poly) and a Peet's. Can you say spoiled? What happened to re-heating bad coffee on a bunsen burner swiped from a Chem lab? Or making daiquiries from the dining hall fruit? (With a little rum, Jamba Juice could make a killing! Too bad Cal Poly is a "dry campus." Shhh, don't tell. I used to make mojitos there.)

One of the new housing complexes has a swimming pool and a beach volleyball court. Is this where the PE majors live? Hollywood-bound drama majors? Dot-com early-retirement engineers? When I attended Cal Poly, we had to drive 15 minutes to the beach! I have to admit, that made for a pretty sweet break when you finished your work. But putting sun and fun temptations right outside the dorm like that, I wonder if anyone will be working at all.

The student recreation center, that I helped finance two decades ago with student fees, not only has a swimming pool and weight lifting room, but it also offers cardio-kickboxing, pilates, yoga, squash, and personal fitness trainers.

The computer lab where I worked with punched cards (I kid you not) has given way to a free wi-fi network encompassing the entire campus. (Hopefully more for social networking than online dating.)

And of course, there's the aforementioned rock climbing wall. It's an outdoor structure, multiple stories high. Way nicer than the portable climbing walls you sometimes see at upscale Silicon Valley art and wine festivals. This thing would get thumbs up from any Planet Granite aficionado for sure.

After seeing the campus, I have to admit, I'd love to re-enroll. But this isn't about me and my collegiate memories. This is about my daughter's education and future career. US News suggests she should aim for the best school possible. Harvard? Brown? UPenn? UVA? Stanford? Berkeley? Any of the other UC's?

"So, daughter. What do you think of your old man's alma mater?"

Her answer was music to my ears. "I want to go to Cal Poly."

This is an original Silicon Valley Moms Blog post. David Mott authors the blog Dad's House - Dating and Parenting by a Single Dad. He co-founded the Single Parents Connection Facebook group.