Photos from the Vault

1965 Cal Poly Enrollment

January 5, 1965

My first two quarters at Cal Poly, class registration was held in Mott Gym. Hopefuls would walk in with a penciled in wish list of classes and walk around from table to table picking up punch cards.

The arena was filled with hundreds of students and every half hour another group would be let in. It was a Darwinian exercise in trying to fill your schedule before all the cards were pulled from the classes you wanted.

As the day went on more and more students could be found sitting in the sawdust on the floor erasing holes in their paper grids trying to fill them with enough units.

No one missed it when the 1980’s ushered in the computer age with CAR, computer assisted registration.

Here in 1965 the fees were an amazing $25.50. With all the bells and whistles you could get out for less than 30 bucks, provided you could pull your cards without losing your sanity. If you want health insurance that’ll be an extra 6 bucks, pay at the door.