Frequently Asked Questions

The Horizon Collective is a selective academic program that will bring together first-year students — different majors, different mindsets — and train them not only for a job, but for a life’s work tackling critical issues at the intersection of climate, tech, and health.

You work on real-world projects that are built into your coursework, not something you have to find time for outside of class. The projects are created by professors with conscientious partner organizations making change grounded in real community needs; by semester’s end you’ve produced a product to deliver, just like you would in the working world.

These three areas – AI and technology, climate and sustainability, and health and wellbeing – reflect areas where USF has expertise, where jobs are growing, and what the world needs most: technology that helps rather than hurts, energy and systems that sustain rather than drain, improved health and health care for all.

Here are three examples: One team uses geospatial data and machine learning to assess and address wildfire risk. Another team works with regulatory agencies to reduce the environmental damage of fast fashion. A third team works with local farms to devise efficient, sustainable ways to consistently deliver fresh produce to public schools.

The Horizon Collective is the first program to grow from USF’s broader Horizon Initiative, a campuswide vision to elevate USF’s interdisciplinary teaching and research strengths in areas of critical global need.

Challenges like air pollution and food insecurity are too big for any one field to tackle. They call for all hands on deck: you, your professors, your classmates, local leaders in industry and in government and in nonprofits — we need every person from every field, both on campus and off, to join a common cause for the common good.

Yes. When you apply to the Horizon Collective, you name one of these majors: accounting, business analytics, computer science, entrepreneurship and innovation, environmental science, environmental studies, finance, hospitality management, international business, marketing, management, psychology, or public health. If you decide in your first year that you want to change your major, you can talk that through with your faculty adviser and adjust as needed.

Yes. Join the Horizon Collective. Major in computer science and minor in politics. In your sophomore year, you can work with classmates to develop an app that helps domestic workers record their work hours. In your junior year, you can work with classmates to help develop public policy to lobby for fair benefits for domestic workers. In your senior year, you and your team can travel to a national conference to pitch your policy to a worker-advocacy organization.

The three areas we’re focused on — AI and technology, climate and sustainability, health and wellbeing — are broad by design, with a lot of overlap. Technology enables environmental science and public health. Climate change affects business and technology. Health and wellness includes psychology and food management. The whole idea of the Horizon Collective is to honor, engage, and enlist the whole of you — your interests and aspirations, left brain and right brain, mind and body and spirit — to join the fight for healthier people and for a healthier planet. Whatever area you’re most drawn to, you’ll work on team projects small and large, local and global, with classmates in and out of your major. You’ll mix, match, rotate, dream, debate, propose, and create.

The future needs people who can work on teams with people from different fields — nurses who can speak finance, psychologists who can code, software developers who care about climate, environmental scientists who can understand marketing plans. Good things happen when different people from different disciplines and viewpoints bounce ideas off each other. That kind of collaboration generates more creative thinking and solutions that keep real people and real life at their center.

Professors at USF don’t just teach these three areas, they work in these three areas of AI and technology, climate and sustainability, and health and wellbeing. Many have longstanding ties in these fields in San Francisco, with well-established partnerships with industry, community, and government organizations that will give you a leg up when you compete for internships. Our alumni data from the last two decades show our graduates not only found work quickly after graduation, they are thriving and leading in their fields.

These professors and alums bring San Francisco’s spirit, energy, and opportunities to campus. They also bring USF’s Jesuit mission to make the world more fair, more just, and better for more people.

Yes. In addition to an academic adviser and an academic success coach, you get your own professional coach. This coach is drawn from industry, whether it’s a USF alum in your field or a sponsor from one of your Horizon projects. Count on this coach to review your work and to help you with your LinkedIn profile, with advice on how to present yourself, how to conceive and pitch new projects, how to hunt for internships, how to interview for jobs, how to lobby, and how to network with people who work in fields that you care about. Your coach won’t do your work for you, but will help you do your work. This coach builds a bridge from your present to your future. This coach can tell you what employers are looking for.

Yes. Each Horizon student receives a scholarship of up to $5,000 per year, renewable for four years. This is in addition to any merit or need-based scholarships you qualify for when you’re admitted to USF.

Yes. If you work with classmates from different disciplines who bring different perspectives to the table, you can change the world for the better — not just after you graduate but right now. Here’s proof.

Apply to USF.