First off, I don’t hate this school. Far from it, actually. I usually like going to school here and I don’t regret my decision to attend. Nevertheless, I know it’s far from perfect.
So here goes. Join me, if you will, in agreeing or disagreeing with the following complaints. Here are 10 things I hate about Cal State Long Beach:
No. 1: This school has no football team. Look, I don’t even like football (I know, call me un-American). But I do like college football given its uncanny ability to bring people together for some commonality. It builds community like no other.
I like the feel of what a college game at a big school must be like (not that I even know it first-hand, but it must be nice). You’ve got a marching band, cheerleaders and huge student sections adorned in identical colors and television cameras, among other things. It must be nice to watch your team for years to come on television even after you’ve graduated.
Unfortunately, this school is never going to have a team again. There’s no money, no stadium to really call our own and even if we had those things, we would be shadowed by the two larger, more prestigious and better monetarily-endowed universities in the L.A. market: USC and UCLA. It would be difficult to recruit talent with those two behemoths so close by.
No. 2: There is not enough housing on campus to efficiently build campus community and shed its commuter spirit. About 2,000 people live on campus, which amounts to about two out of 35 people.
Where are the other 33? The answer is they’re either commuting from L.A. and Orange County or living off-campus. You cannot build a community when 33 out of 35 don’t bother to stick around long enough to establish community identity.
CSULB should follow the game plan common in urban planning called the “urban village.” This is a self-sustaining environment, where people live and work in a single urban area while establishing community development and bonding. Though this concept is the complete opposite of the car-dependent urban sprawl behind Los Angeles, CSULB could benefit from it.
Imagine if we had dorms for 5,000 people or, dare I say, 10,000 people on campus. Imagine if that many people were here on nearly a 24/7 basis. So many people stuck here or choosing to be here would inevitably build the spirit this campus is sorely lacking. Living in the cramped kind of urban complex would foster the identity and quite possibly be more fun than living in a yellow submarine.
Of course, these kinds of numbers would require high-rise dormitories in a fashion to what one might see at UCLA. Unfortunately for reasons unknown to me, high-rise dormitories are not in the playbook for the future dormitory expansion plans in the coming years.
That’s too bad. Even with the expansion of new dorms planned within the next decade, I don’t think the increased numbers living on campus will be enough to shed the commuter spirit that has plagued this campus probably from day one.
No. 3: This one relates to No. 2. Long Beach is not a college town, and because of that, it is not a sweltering pit promoting that traditional college spirit. Long Beach is a town of nearly 500,000 people, most of whom don’t go to CSULB and probably don’t care about CSULB.
That’s not to say there aren’t supportive alumni nearby, but this place is just not a college town – and it never will be.
No. 4: We have too many of the same choices in our dining facilities, which ends up being really no choice at all. Here’s what I mean.
We have a Quizno’s and a Subway. We have a Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, Starbucks and two Seattle’s Best coffeehouses. We have a Robeks and a Surf City Squeeze bar in the University Dining Plaza. We have both a Taco Bell and El Pollo Loco.
That’s 10 locations that, essentially, offer the same types of product. And while we must have the best burrito, sub sandwich, coffee and smoothie combo on the planet, I think we deserve more choices for a campus of 35,000.
No. 5: The campus shuttle system is pathetic. Look, people, this campus isn’t that big. It really isn’t. Just walk.
You can get there in the same amount of time it takes to wait for the infrequent shuttles to come and get you. So enjoy the weather, the trees, the grass, the eye candy or the planes flying overhead toward the airport, while isolating yourself in the tunes of your iPod.
But if you have considerable difficulty walking for whatever physical reason, then hop on that shuttle. It’s there for you. And rest assured that, I for one, will not be taking the spot you really need because I was too lazy to walk.
No. 6: There needs to be bathrooms in the dining halls. The way it is now, either you go before you get in or you leave prematurely because they won’t allow you re-entry. It sucks.
No. 7: No alcohol is sold in The Walter Pyramid anymore. For obvious alcoholic reasons, this sucks, too.
No. 8: This campus is adorned with sculptures and other various artworks that must have been really great in the ’60s or ’70s or whenever they were built. But in this decade, their abstractness is only a testament to how, because of the smaller amount of psychedelic drugs floating around, students are not able to appreciate them anymore.
Case in point: the artistically decaying wooden pile of nonsense on the corner of West Campus Drive and 7th Street. What the hell is that?
We need cool campus artwork.
Case in point: UCSD. It has a building with neon lights that light up, alternating between the seven holy virtues and the seven deadly sins.
That campus also has a talking tree. How cool is that?
No. 9: CSULB students do not get a free city bus pass. Many other universities give their students either free bus passes or have their passes included in fees. How are we supposed to fight global warming if we keep using our cars?
Or, even worse, how are we supposed to give the designated driver a designated drinking break if he has to drive every time? We all should be using our Long Beach Transit bus passes to get home after a heavy night of drinking, courtesy of our administrative friends at The Beach.
No. 10: I hate people who complain about CSULB. Ha!
Bradley Zint is a senior journalism and political science major and the managing editor for the Daily Forty-Niner
