The purpose of this blog is to cover new developments in Residential Life and Dining at California State University Long Beach. This blog will cover a variety of topics ranging from food to activities in the dorms. This is a student blog and is not endorsed by the Housing Department.
Freshman Nicole Plotkin is still stuck in her stuffy dorm room. Plotkin filled out a maintenance request form when she learned that the screen in her window had popped out in the bottom left hand corner. Plotkin filled out the form two weeks ago and still hasn’t received any help.
Other residents have also experienced similar problems. Freshman Amanda Corrigan still has a broken closet three weeks after filling a form.
“I even filled out another maintenance request form because I thought the first one got lost somewhere,” she said.
Freshman Efren Espinoza has filled out many maintenance requests and has always received the help he requested in a few days. His only complaint is, “Those bitches never show up until your napping.”
Plotkin plans to fill out another maintenance request form and to contact her RA about her troubles.
Until then however she will have her window closed. “It brings in spiders,” she says.
UPDATE: Recently Plotkin's air conditioner vent fell leaving her unable to close her door. Plotkin received help within an hour and had her window fixed as well.
The dining hall in recognition to Earth Day has stopped using trays in order the raise awareness on the superfluous waste associate with the trays. Cafeteria trays have been associated with causing greater food waste and use of water in clean up.
However students are agitated about today’s change. “I am already clumsy. This is just asking for me to drop something in front of everyone,” said Amanda Chandra, a freshman.
Other students were surprised how much the change disrupted their normal eating patterns.
“When I got to the dining hall it is usually just to grab something quick to eat right before class. Now when I go in the dining hall I have to make several trips just to put my plates away. Today I was late to
two classes,” said freshman Amanda Swearigen.
“In California, no-tray schools include UC Irvine, UC Riverside, UC Santa Cruz, San Diego State, Loyola Marymount University and all five undergraduate campuses in the Claremont Colleges consortium to which Pomona College belongs,” according to the Los Angeles Times.
Earth day originally started April 22, 1970 and has been used to reflect on the environment and how to keep it healthy.
The dining hall will resume using trays on Friday.
***UPDATE***
The dining hall has enacted a new policy of tray-less Fridays.
(At the top, open mike night at 9 p.m. Below, open mike night at 10 p.m.)
Despite the furlough day and the windy weather students gathered at the Parkside Dining hall for an open mike night on Wednesday.
Many students came to see their friends perform. However, some students had heard misleading rumors about the food provided."I only came because of the food. I heard there was going to be smoked salmon," said freshman Natalie Pacheco.
Although the night started slow with only about 10-15 people in the audience, more students trickled in within the first hour filling up the dining hall with about 80 students.
In the three hours allotted about 28 performers presented with acts ranging from stand-up comedians to musicians. And despite one comedy act having to be dismissed because of its crude jokes the night went on with success because even non-residents came to to the show.
David Romero a student at a community college in Alhambra attended because his friend Robbie was performing. "The event the RA's put on seem really legit. I'm thinking about transferring here next year."
(To the left, Sumit Lad in the international house)
Sumit Lad, a graduate student studying electrical engineering has seen his fair share of dorm rooms. After attending the University of Pune in India and visiting his friends’ dorm rooms, Lad is happy he decided to dorm in the U.S
“There is a lot less socializing. I just noticed that whenever I went over there were people cursing and throwing things around. There seemed to be a lot of quarrelling.”
Lad describes the dorms in India in very callous words both in terms of the people and the rules. He says students (all of whom were engineers) were extremely competitive with each other.
“I didn’t have many friends in college in India. It was only until I started living in the international house that I started to make friends in my college career. There a lot of exchange students so they know how to have a good time for a semester before they go back”.
In fact, Lad has changed his roommate every semester within the 2 years he has lived in the international house.
“I’ve met a lot of people living here. I didn’t much of a college experience in India. Now I finally have those crazy college stories.”
Lad will be living in Beverly Plaza apartments due to the cost of the dorms.
A new meal plan, the Block Plus Flex Plan will be offered to new and returning residents for the fall semester. The plan consists of 160 meals per semester(which is around 9 meals a week) and $100 flex dollars which would be considered the same as Beach Club dollars and can be used at all locations on and off campus that accept Beach Club.
As of March 31st, of the 1,507 students who have applied for Housing, 518 selected 10 meals, 317 selected Block, 603 selected 19 and 69 haven’t selected yet, according to Carol Roberts-Corb the director of Housing and Residential Life. Roberts-Corb believes the meal plan is ideal for students “that want to eat on campus sometimes or go home frequently. “
The most common meal plan to be selected is the 19 meal plan. Freshman Breanna Pruett who selected the 19 meal plan said, “ The new meal plan is BS. $100 bucks! That will down the drain in a week!”
Other students such as Freshman Kirsten Ratcliff say the plan would be better for students who live closer to home.
“Even though people live at the dorms, at least half of them go away for the weekend. This will be a commuter school no matter what and this plans will work for the kind of residents that live here.”
Despite complaints from non-vegetarian residents, students with special dietary needs are satisfied with the dining hall’s efforts to accommodate their needs.
Freshman Chelsea Rinden, a vegetarian for 12 years, finds that the dining hall has just enough options for her.
“Every now and then there are things that I don’t want to eat, but that goes for anybody. I do eat a lot of the same food over and over again but I do that normally, even if I wasn’t eating at the dining hall."
She also added that the ability for students to special order food (quesadillas, grilled cheese and chicken breast) gives picky eaters even more options.
Freshman Star Jeeries agrees. Jeeries had just decided to become vegan a month and a half ago and despite being stuck with hummus and pita bread for some meals, she believes the dining hall is doing the best they can. For her meals, Jeeries usually rummages through the vegan fridge.
However, some students have had to alter their eating needs such as Priscilla Sigala. Priscilla had been a vegetarian for 3 years. However, in mid November of last year she began to eat meat again in order to have more options.
“There more options once you eat meant. I started eating meat because I wanted more options in the dining hall.”
However, despite the lack of options, many students with special dietary needs believe the dining hall has done well compared to other cafeterias.
“There have been so many situations where I go to an all-you-can-eat buffet style cafeteria and there is literally nothing I can eat. At least at the dining hall I have some back up foods,” Rinden said.
Despite complaints from non-vegetarian residents, students with special dietary needs are satisfied with the dining hall’s efforts to accommodate their needs.
Freshman Chelsea Rinden, a vegetarian for 12 years, finds that the dining hall has just enough options for her.
“Every now and then there are things that I don’t want to eat, but that goes for anybody. I do eat a lot of the same food over and over again but I do that normally, even if I wasn’t eating at the dining hall."
She also added that the ability for students to special order food (quesadillas, grilled cheese and chicken breast) gives picky eaters even more options.
Freshman Star Jeeries agrees. Jeeries had just decided to become vegan a month and a half ago and despite being stuck with hummus and pita bread for some meals, she believes the dining hall is doing the best they can. For her meals, Jeeries usually rummages through the vegan fridge.
However, some students have had to alter their eating needs such as Priscilla Sigala. Priscilla had been a vegetarian for 3 years. However, in mid November of last year she began to eat meat again in order to have more options.
“There more options once you eat meant. I started eating meat because I wanted more options in the dining hall.”
However, despite the lack of options, many students with special dietary needs believe the dining hall has done well compared to other cafeterias.
“There have been so many situations where I go to an all-you-can-eat buffet style cafeteria and there is literally nothing I can eat. At least at the dining hall I have some back up foods,” Rinden said.
Close to 400 students gathered at the Parkside dining hall on Wednesday nights to see, the self-proclaimed World’s Greatest Hypnotist Dave Hill.
Before the show started Hill made sure to play his own introduction, including a list of credentials, in order to prove his credibility.
The audience eagerly raised their hands to be part of the hypnosis comedy show, however only 20 were selected.
The show began with Hill claiming that he is the world’s fastest hypnotist and made a volunteer, Luis, fall asleep almost instantaneously. Luis, was found be very susceptible to hypnosis and soon become the star of the show.
The other 16 students were hypnotized in the show were made to perform ridiculous acts such as slapping their rear end like a Congo drum or were made to believe that they were riding a horse.
Some students, who were selected to be hypnotized at the beginning of the show, were not hypnotized and asked to leave the stage.
Freshman Natalie Pacheco was not able to get hypnotized.
“I was focusing really hard but I just didn’t believe the things he was saying. My eyes were closed but I could feel they wanted to open. I was waiting for the moment to go blank but it never happened. I didn’t know how it was supposed to feel, so I was confused.”
Hill responded saying that some students aren’t able to get hypnotized because they cannot focus or concentrate or they might be curious to see what the other students are being made to do.
Others were skeptical that the students were really hypnotized.
“I heard that people that wanted to ‘help out’ with the show should go early before the show started so I thought that it might be a scheme,” said Elisse Garcia, a freshman.
Hill has been a hypnotist for 25 years and studied under another hypnotist Gil Boyne. He decided to join the profession when he saw a hypnotist show when he was 24 years old. This was Hill’s second time visiting CSULB residents.
(To the left, Beams working at the Renaissance fair)
There are very few residents at CSULB who can pay the staggering price of over $10,000 to live in the dorms. However, two residents, Mikey Fesser and Ashley Beams are managing to do so, in very different ways.
Beams, a sophomore has learned to earn her own living from an early age.
“I’ve worked odds jobs since I was 12. I’ve worked at the renaissance fair and I also sew costumes and prom dresses. If I wanted something I had to provide it for myself. “
In addition to her sewing jobs, Beams also worked 30 hours a week at Sports Chalet to help pay for her board. Beams says she came to live in the dorms on the false pretense that her father would help her pay, but he didn’t live up to his promise. Now Beams is worried she won’t be able to make her payments.
“I was promised by my dad that he would help pays. It was either dorms or commute. My moms not willing to help, she only pays some part of the tuition. I came here based on false promises form my dad and took that leap of faith and got screwed” Beams said.
Fesser on the other hand, had a stroke of luck both with his life and, paying for the dorms. In 2002, Fesser went to carnival and rode a ride called “The Zipper”. The Zipper contains metal cages that passengers sit in while being pulled by a cable. While Fesser and his brother were about to get out of their cage, the ride started up again, leaving the cage open and with both passengers not constrained by seatbelts. Both Fesser and his brother dropped 10-12 feet. As a result, Fesser won a settlement and receives $17,000 every four years starting on his 18th birthday.
There are not many college students who can say they are truly independent from their parents. Yet, both Fesser and Beams despite their extreme circumstances, now have that bragging right.
Tiffany Blankenship, a freshman, doesn’t come home to the Los Alamitos dorms anymore. Blankenship, in addition to about 70 other students this school year, had to move out mid-year from the dorms according to Carol Roberts-Corb, the head of the Housing Department.
The struggle to meet the over $10,000 cost of living in the dorms weighed down on Blankenship’s family to a point where they could no longer pay. Blankenship was forced to move out in February.She is now living in Beverley Plaza Apartments and commutes to school.
“I believe the amount that you pay [for the dorms] is not economically equivalent to the services you receive. When you can go out within a mile of school and get your own apartment at much less of a cost and have a nicer place to live, there's no point in living on campus” Blankenship said.
Sophomore Michelle Zetomer no longer has a roommate due to high prices. Her roommate, Ann Monahan, was an out of state student. Monahan was unable to afford housing in addition to the increase of fees for out of state fees (an additional $372 for each credit taken).
Monahan ended up moving out at the end of last semester back home to Washington. She is currently not enrolled at any university this semester.
Watson's borrowed pumpkins(above)
The items Illingworth used to further enhance his dorm(left).
College students have long been notorious for making the most out of a dollar and the dorm residents are certainly no exception.
Students have learned to stealthily borrow a few things from the dining hall to further furnish their dorm rooms. Take it from Zac Illingworth, a freshman mechanical engineering major whose 6’10" frame is hard not to notice.
“It was extremely easy. The card sliding employees don't get paid nearly enough to care, and the manager is rarely on the floor. In general, the easiest place to hide something is in the open. Because I'm so tall people suspecting theft rarely look to me because I'm such a target they think I could never get away with it" said Illingworth.
Illingworth and suitemates keep the non-perishable objects such as tableware (two knives, one cup, a salt and pepper shaker) in their common room and plan to keep them until broken.
Most residents will admit to putting food in a paper coffee cup to save for later. Some students such as William Watson, a sophomore and marine biology major, have learned to get creative. Watson managed to carry off a pumpkin that was being used for decoration.
Watson ended up making the pumpkin a jack-o-lantern for Halloween and using it to decorate the outside patio area of the International House.
Not all students believe that “borrowing” items from the dining hall is always acceptable. Freshman Natalie Pacheco said, “I believe taking food out of dining hall is acceptable, but when it comes to plates and silverware, its just going to cost next years residents even more to replace those items.”
CSULB housing residents, who previously did not have to worry about housing availability, now will have to scurry to reapply by Feb. 26 before the housing application is available to new students.
The sparsely inhabited dorms this year will soon be bombarded by freshman with the new freshman residential requirement. All incoming freshman for Fall 2010 will be required to live on campus unless 21 years old, living at home with a parent, married, or having a medical disability. New students will first have to be accepted to the university, apply for housing, before they can submit an exemption request.
The dorms can hold a maximum of 2,538 students; 1,930 residents currently on on campus this year according to the director of Housing and Residential Life, Carol Roberts-Corb.
According to the Housing Web site Residents who have been living on campus since 2008 will pay between a range of $7,600 to $8,000 depending on the meal plan. However returning 2009 residents will pay the same fee as new incoming student: between $10,050 to $10,450. All resident are required to purchase a meal plan in addition with the housing fee.
Roberts-Corb said, "We have guaranteed to our current residents that the room portion of their total room and meal cost will not increase for as long as they continuously live in Housing. Nor will we be increasing the room cost for incoming residents for 2010-2011."
Residents only have a two week period to apply before the new student's application will be available online. The application for new students will be available March 1.
(Above, Plotkin's broken window)
