Cougars & Mustangs 

So long, sweet summer! With Cuesta College students returning to classes on Aug. 15, the carefree days when downtown SLO was filled with tourists were recently replaced by busy days when downtown SLO is filled with a much younger demographic. To crabby locals, both are equally annoying; they just substitute poor driving and whining kids for horrendous driving and whining young adults. Both visitors, however, seem to have similar amounts of expendable income—while tourists break their hard-earned money at wineries and over-priced clothing stores, students spend their parents’ hard-earned money at bars and beirut tournaments.

Speaking of trying to capture a piece of the ever-shrinking expendable income pie, Cal Poly graduate business students learned by doing. Students and faculty from the Orfalea College of Business MBA program recently returned from a 14-day tour of China that included stops in the cities of Shenzhen, Shanghai, and Beijing. MBA student David Hart said the ability to remain open-minded was one of the most important lessons he learned.

“We will be much more successful in conducting business if we strive to understand the cultures of different countries as well as different firms,” he said. “We need to be careful about making assumptions and try to expand our own world views so that we can better know how to interact with others.”

The Cal Poly football team is hoping to interact with others on a very physical level. The Mustangs have started practice and saw nearly 50 returning lettermen and 14 returning starters from last year’s squad. In all, 95 players are expected to drill for a couple of weeks in preparation for the Sept. 3 season opener at San Diego State. Head coach Tim Walsh and his coaching staff have installed a few new wrinkles into the offensive scheme, including a shotgun formation as well as a no-huddle style with plays signaled in from the sideline.



“Our goal is to win the Great West Conference championship,” stated Walsh, whose Mustangs were 7-4 a year ago but finished third in the Great West behind Southern Utah and UC Davis. “As far as the playoffs go, we have to win some tough road games to get there.”

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