Academics · The Bachelor of Arts in Technology

One degree. The whole education.

SDIT's academic program is a single four-year degree — the Bachelor of Arts in Technology — that reunites the arts, sciences, engineering, and humanities into one course of study, taught through real work.

It is a working framework, developed in the open ahead of accreditation. What follows is the structure as it stands today.

The DegreeHow it is built

One degree — 120 units, eight semesters.

Every student earns the same degree. The first two years are a shared Foundation, identical for everyone: the books, the mathematics, the code, and the Workshop — a common language the artist and the engineer both speak.

At the end of Year 2, each student declares a concentration — chosen from two years of made work rather than at the door:

Media

Things people watch, hear, and feel — film, music production, interactive story, generative media.

Design

Things people use — interfaces, interaction, fabrication, physical computing, where made things meet people.

Engineering

Things that work on their own — AI systems, embedded sensors, robotics.

In the final two years, four depth studios in the declared concentration — plus the Crossing: one full studio from outside it, required of everyone. The artist engineers; the engineer makes art. A placed Field Term, a defended Capstone, and Physical Culture run alongside throughout.

The ThreadsWhat you study

Nine threads, woven across four years.

The curriculum runs in continuous threads rather than disconnected courses. Each one is carried from the first year to the last.

The Canon

Homer to the present, read closely — the text paired with a film and an album, discussed as one conversation, answered with made work.

Mathematics & Science

Calculus, mechanics, waves, linear algebra, probability — every concept made physical before it is made formal.

Computation & Intelligent Systems

From logic gates to machine learning to the studied practice of directing and verifying AI as a native medium.

Rhetoric & Epistemics

Writing with clarity and force; logic, statistical reasoning, and epistemic self-defense — how to know what is true.

Culture & Signal

How music, images, and scenes actually move through the world — ending in a real cultural artifact shipped to a real audience.

The Workshop

Every semester, every student, on a project team that ships. Surfboards, electronics, camera rigs, ocean sensors, drones.

Field Term

A full term embedded in a partner organization — a firm, a lab, a studio, a venture — under a designated mentor.

Physical Culture

The waterman tradition, institutionalized — surfing, sailing, freediving, a combat practice. Graduation-required, non-credit.

Capstone

A defended original work in one of three forms: a research thesis, an engineered system that works, or a venture that exists.

The full course-by-course catalog is published openly at learn.sandiegotech.org.

The Five OutcomesWhat a graduate can do

Everything the Institute certifies reduces to five capacities.

They are assessed at annual gates — a portfolio review and a written and oral examination — and proven once more in the Capstone.

Judgment

Rigorous reasoning under uncertainty.

Command of Intelligence

Directing, building, and evaluating AI systems as a native medium.

Craft

Conceiving, designing, and physically realizing working artifacts.

Articulation

Writing and speaking with clarity and force.

Breadth of Mind

History, philosophy, literature, science, and living culture as one continuous conversation.

AI-native, not AI-dependent AI tools are open and studied throughout — and students still pass periodic unassisted examinations in writing, mathematics, and code. The Institute certifies the human, so it observes the human unaided.

The MethodHow it is taught

Keep the names. Transform the delivery.

Every course carries two registers: a catalog name a transcript and a graduate school will recognize, and a teaching frame — how it is actually delivered.

Mechanics

The forces on a rail, the bottom turn, the lean angle — taught on the sand and in the water at Scripps Pier.

Calculus

Motion: ramp transitions, racing lines, the decay of a swell. Sound: harmonics through the synthesizer and the studio.

Linear Algebra

Every photograph, every mix, every model is matrices — the secret on-ramp to machine learning.

The catalog satisfies the system; the frame is the education. The credential is the interface; the portfolio is the truth. Things a person is genuinely drawn to, pursued with rigor, become the most demanding teachers of judgment, attention, and taste.

StatusWhere this stands

A working framework, built in public.

The degree is specified as a working framework, not yet an enrolling program. SDIT is in its founding phase, before accreditation — we are plain about what that means.

The full curriculum is open and free to anyone at learn.sandiegotech.org. Our accreditation status and roadmap are published in full. There are three ways to take part today: