The oldest public higher education institute on the west coast of the United States, San Jose State University (SJSU) is the founding member of the 23-campus California State University system and it is located on a 154-acre campus in downtown San Jose, California’s third-largest city.

Founded in 1857 as the Minns Evening Normal School in San Francisco, the university moved to its current location in San Jose in 1871, opening a branch campus in Los Angeles in 1882 that later became University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).

In 1930 the institution developed the first policing degree in the United States and in the 1960s and 1970s there were a number of campus protests as a result of the Vietnam War.

Today the university offers 145 areas of study and there are seven major colleges. The student population is historically very diverse – in 2009 SJSU had the largest foreign enrollment total among master’s institutions in the country and there is a high percentage of Hispanic and Asian students currently studying at the university.

Around 3,500 students live in one of the seven residence halls on-campus, while a lot of the sports and athletics facilities are located around 1.5 miles away from the main campus on a 62-acre site known as the SJSU South campus. This is where the university varsity teams, known as the Spartans, train and compete.

Notable alumni of SJSU including musician Stevie Nicks, Intel founder Gordon Moore, ethologist Dian Fossey and founder of Dolby Laboratories, Ray Dolby.