Discover Caltech Welcomes All Students Into the Caltech Community

DiscoTech 2022 students. Image: Bill Youngblood

The Caltech student experience is unlike any other. From the House System to SURF to JPL, there is a lot for admitted students to consider and process as they make their decision about where to enroll as undergraduates. That is why the Caltech Undergraduate Admissions Office hosts Discover Caltech. The two-day event, also known as DiscoTech, made its return to campus in April 2022 alongside ecosySTEMs, a one-day pre-program that offers historically marginalized and underrepresented students the chance to experience the new community they will be joining.

Formally called the Pre-Frosh Experience, DiscoTech drew 433 attendees in 2022, including 222 who also joined ecosySTEMs. They heard from current students, faculty members, administrators, alumni, and others about not only Caltech’s research, campus life, and commitment to diversity, but also what to expect after commencement.

Nobel Laureate Frances H. Arnold, the Linus Pauling Professor of Chemical Engineering, Bioengineering and Biochemistry; and director of the Donna and Benjamin M. Rosen Bioengineering Center, welcomed the crowd with a keynote address about her lab’s efforts to engineer enzymes using directed evolution.