Cal Poly’s Campus Health & Wellbeing is currently offering free flu shots during the month of October. Students can find these clinics at several central campus locations to promote convenient and affordable access to college students.
Students can receive a free flu shot with their Cal Poly ID; four sessions have already transpired and there will be three left for the month.
As of 2025, this is the largest scale of flu shot administration they have ever done, according to Kirsten Cullen, a registered nurse at the Cal Poly Health Center.
Cullen is grateful to get the help from volunteers from Cal Poly’s American Medical Student Association, an organization that aims to support, inform and inspire future physicians.
“We want to get as many people living in such a congregated environment to be vaccinated as possible,” Cullen said.
The goal is to make it easy for students to attend at their leisure. With convenience in mind, the Health Center has set up stands in these central locations: Dexter Lawn, Health Center Lawn, Mustang Way and the University Union Marketplace.
“I think we happen to catch people that are walking by and were like, ‘You know what, I wasn’t even thinking about getting a flu shot. I’ll do it,’” Cullen said.
This is the furthest-reaching campus flu shot clinic the Health Center has attempted, according to Cullen. The effort for flu shot accessibility is something they have been working on for a while.
“They’ve been really well attended,” Cullen said. “Last week we had one at the UU that we were able to give 140 vaccines out in that morning.”
The Health Center administered vaccines inside its own building before finding it disrupted daily operations, according to Cullen. They decided to move beyond their doors.
“There’d be long lines of students,” Cullen said. “It kind of impacted the flow of the Health Center and we thought also that we’d be able to get more students to actually know that we were doing it and coming in if we went out into the community.”
The first time they branched out on a larger scale was last year, making their efforts more visible to students and community members. During this time, they administered flu shots within clinics on campus, dorm buildings, residential areas and the University Union.
There are three remaining sessions this month all taking place 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.: Monday, Oct. 13 on Dexter Lawn; Tuesday, Oct. 21 on the Health Center Lawn and Wednesday, Oct. 29 on Mustang Way.
