1995_08 The Daily Collegian August 1995

              THE DAILY
COLLEGIAN
Wednesday, August 30,1995
Opinion
Managing/Opinion Editor: Celeste Cox
Telephone: (209) 278-5732
Words of Wisdom
By Jeff Smith
The smell of trees and flowers, the sight of lines and crowds and the
noise of construction have welcomed all students back to yet another
semester!
And as you prepare to fight those ugly, nasty beasts of classes, there
are somethings you should know that could help you in your everyday
battle.
After five years here at good 'ole California State University, Fresno,
I have acquired knowledge that I would like to share in the hopes that it
will help all of you to avoid that feeling of dread and pointlessness that
all students faee at least once on this campus.
This will probably help freshmen and re-entering students more than
the rest, but it is good knowledge nonetheless.
I have labeled this little piece of art The Unauthorized Students Guide
to CSUF, by Jeffrey Smith. This is only a portion of a larger work in the
process of being put together, but please look for future installments
4 here.
Chapter 1: Everything a student should know on the first day of the
fall semester.
Free Slinkies and high interest rates
Beware the credit card applications and the free merchandise! The^
idea of free stuff lures most students into signing next to that X ^nd
perhaps getting themselves into more than they bargained for.  ^J
Credit card companies target you specifically because they know you
WILL buy stuff with that credit card. Most of them have extremely high
interest rates which are usually mentioned in fine print and can kill you
worse than student loans.
If you are interested in getting one for emergencies or to establish a
credit line, look closer at the fine print. There are groups that come on
campus which have low interests rates and sometimes no annual fees as
well.
Don't let the oversized, bloated credit card beast take a bite out of
your hard-earned paycheck.
Caution: hard hat area
Watch out for the\:onstruction! For the last two or three years, there
has been construction in progress in one form or another.
Since I have been here, changes to the East Engineering Building,
the Education Building, a new cooling system, landscaping and now,
renovations of what was formerly the Country Store and the Pit have all
transformed the campus. These changes are for the better, but they make
getting around more difficult.
Plan ahead and don't be caught off guard by some guy in a hard hat
and orange vest waving you aside.
Financial aid fiascos
Don't let the financial aid office get the best of you! Stand your ground
with them and fight them when you can. They are extremely slow, and I
have a prime example: Last semester, I applied for the mystical finan¬
cial aid and ran into a few problems. It now seems they still have yet to
process my application completely. Therefore, I am unable to purchase
my books.
I seem to have Fate on my side, however, as one of my loving par¬
ents was nice enough to say, "Find out how much your books will be
and I will loan you the money." Thanks Mom :)
Parking and book buying not advised
Parking is to be avoided if possible. It is costly and a pain to find a
spot that won't take you hours to walk to your class. If you are lucky
enough to find one, watch out for that obscured yellow line on the curb.
There seems to be more faculty than regular people parking, so an open
parking space may just be a ticket waiting to happen.
The Kennel Bookstore is not your only option. There is the Univer¬
sity Bookstore on Cedar and Barstow, which is rumored to have some
books at considerably lower prices than Kennel. Don't rush, be a bar¬
gain shopper and save some of that hard-earned money
Lastly, as I run out of space, don't let the semester and your classes
frustrate and discourage you. Thereis plenty of time fonhar In other
ways of life. I have learned a helpful habit: shrug, sigh and say, "such is
life," but don't give up. This just helps relieve some stress, and doesn't
let it get to you.
When you are ready and prepared, then you fight back and change
things. As some great leaders have said — and this is a loose paraphrase
— choose your battles and the battlefield that gives you the advantage.
Fresno's charm overlooked
by tourists and Fresnans
By Reg Wagner ,	
Staff writer
The greatest benefit of living in Fresno, say its crit¬
ics, is that two national parks are relatively close and
both San Francisco and Los Angeles are nearly equi¬
distant.
In other words, Fresno can be an easy place to
escape.
Why would folks want to escape from a city with a
reputation as one of the most "middle-American" and
"provincial" places in California? An area that pro¬
duces more figs than just about any other place in the
United States? The site of some of the richest and most
productive agricultural lands in the world?
Perhaps because
parts of Fresno have
become hotbeds of _^___—^_
crime, reminding one
of festering sores that
infect every walled-
off private residence
and gated community
in the immediate lo-
jyrier-''
Because auto theft  ■__	
rates are some of the
highest in the state.
Because it's so damn hot here in the summertime
... which might be more closely related to the high
crime rate than we think. It's no coincidence that ris¬
ing temperatures — which flares tempers and makes
an angry person even angrier — is usually paralleled
by a rise in crime rates.
Yet tucked away inside the neat rows of bunga¬
lows, Victorians, shanties and box-like single-family
houses are the same good people who can be found in
any other city in the world.
There's a rough-and-tough Fresno attitude that
comes from constantly watching one's own back; from
dodging the glare of someone seeking to start a fight;
from flinching due to something more than mere para¬
noia every time a vehicle backfires.
But when enough mutual trust is built between two
people, the "Fresno attitude" begins to break down.
Like a bullied kid in a playground, Fresnans have
a defensive streak that comes from decades of being
the butt of jokes.
They've never thought of their city as another San
Diego or Monterey, but the constant barrage of in¬
sults from places like Bakersfield and Sacramento
must really sting Fresnans' hides.
There's a rough-and-tough
Fresno attitude that
comes from constantly
watching one's own back ...
Sacramentans have a saying: "We're not San Fran¬
cisco, but at least we're not Fresno." And folks from
Bakersfield are smug in their knowledge that
Bakersfield's freeway system is significantly better than
Fresno's.
To tourists, California means'vast sandy beaches,
towering seaside cliffs, thick ancient redwoods and shiny
red Ferraris. Fresno boasts none of the above, but does
have a dusty 1960s-era freeway that grinds through end¬
less miles of dead grass, a place called Fulton Mall that
is a mall in only the most primitive sense of the word,
and one of the largest Kmarts anywhere.
Fresno also has the relatively unknown Forestiere
Underground Gardens, built by a Fresnan who dug him¬
self an underground house to escape the heat arid fur¬
ther demonstrate that
another great way to
__^____^_^___ get out of Fresno is to
go underground.
The fact that Fresno
is one of the fastest
growing cities in the
nation shows that its
citizens aren't yet flee¬
ing in droves.
_ In fact, people have
always come here to
seek the agricultural
jobs that the region is known for. Unfortunately, the
availability of these types of jobs is dependent upon the
Central Valley's weather, which determines whether a
crop is withered by drought or destroyed by hail or a
late rain.
Weather in other agricultural areas of the world also
determines who works and who is idle here.
A shortage or plenitude of crops in other places might
mean the difference between crops being picked in
Fresno County and crops being left to rot in the fields
because of oversupply or lack of demand.
In a place where jobs might not be available next
year, people never allow themselves to get too settled
in.
To homesick freshmen, Fresno must seem like a hell
on earth. But in reality, it becomes a complex and in¬
credible place once one learns to overcome a short at¬
tention span and look beneath the surface.
Pulitzer Prize winner Philip Levine, a former Cali¬
fornia State University, Fresno professor, calls it a "dear
little crummy village," and nobody denies it.
But it's a fascinating crummy village.
You may never learn to love it, but open your eyes
and mind and I promise you won't hate it.
Daily Collegian
- California State Unversity, Fresno -
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