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Students arrive first day to face parking, long lines

As the sun rises gracefully over the horizon and its rays gently caress the blades of grass throughout campus, a new semester begins at Cal State Long Beach. Of course, this is only a dream and the reality of the new semester, just as any other semester, is the long lines, parking issues and fight to grab that last spot in class.

As the second semester of the year starts, experienced students have found ways to thwart those new semester pains.

Normally, students seem to have more problems on the first day of classes than any other in the entire semester, but this time it’s different. Among the many things students must watch out for on a typical day on campus are parking issues, long lines at the University Bookstore and Brotman Hall and issues with construction work that might be happening.

Parking

“It has been cool so far,” said senior civil engineering major Rebecca Martinez. “I park off campus because the price for parking passes is too high and once the semester begins, it takes me a half-hour to an hour to find parking.”

Although off-campus parking may save money, it isn’t as convenient as parking on campus, despite the price of $98 per pass. According to Eric Oum, a freshman computer science major, there are ways to avoid paying for parking without parking off-campus.

“Parking for me is very easy because I just carpool with my friend and getting through traffic is much easier,” Oum said.

Sophomore graphic design major Yadira Rodriguez agrees that carpooling to school is the way to go as well.

“I have a car and carpool on purpose to avoid paying. It’s so much easier and it saves money,” Rodriguez said.””My first class was boring. It seems that it’s always like that on the first day of classes. All that happened was the teacher went over the syllabus and class expectations. I was bored to tears.”

Construction

Construction around campus has included the University Library, which has completed its first phase but has yet to complete phases two and three. But for now, the campus has completed two Seattle’s Best coffeehouses in the dormitories and a Starbucks in the library.

“My favorite thing about the campus is the library. The construction doesn’t bother me. I can’t wait to see how it turns out when it’s done,” Rodriguez said.

Lines

According to some of the students interviewed, the lines for the University Bookstore and Brotman Hall are fast, but some at the other end aren’t the easiest to deal with.

“The people at Enrollment Services aren’t very nice,” said Ruben Cordova, a senior business major. “They seem to have an underlying contempt for the students. Then again, if I worked there and had to deal with people I might be that way, too.”

Buying books has its problems, but like anything else, there is always another way to go.

“You should pre-order books online to avoid lines,” junior kinesiology major Guillero Camacho said. “It’s really good that we have the new parking structure in Lot 11, too, because it takes pressure off of the old structure.”

According to Martinez, using your student I.D. saves time for books as well.

“I didn’t wait in line at all to buy books. I just used my beach card and they put me on a separate register. It saved me a lot of time,” Martinez said.

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