When people think about San Diego State, what image comes to mind?A top-ranked football team? Not likely. An outstanding center forhigher education? Not unless you throw community colleges in the mix.A placewhere students are involved in politics and care about the dailyissues that affect them? Unless the issue has to deal with the priceof clothes or a new diet craze, probably not.

So what is it that makes the school I have been attending for 5years stand out among all the other colleges in this great country ofours? If you ask the good people of Playboy, they would tell you it’sthe parties and the girls. I bet it took some seriously planned-outboard meetings to try to wipe our school of that reputation. Maybefor some, this is a place of great diversity. But then again, if youjust go a few miles down University Avenue and walk west, you’llprobably experience cultural over-stimulation.

For me, it has been the faculty. The accessibility of the facultyto the students in my classes has been an asset to my education. Butthen again, I went on www.ratemyprofessor.com.For many students, SDSU is just a pit stop between sleep and work.For most, this pit stop is spent in the Love Library sleeping.

When the school does its recruiting, it feeds high school juniorsand seniors a list of successful alumni. But then again, theirmanager at the McDonald’s they work at is seen to them as successful.When I got into the television film and new media major five yearsago, I was told Kathleen Kennedy graduated from SDSU. For those ofyou who don’t know, Kennedy is a Hollywood producer who hascollaborated with Steven Spielberg on many films. But other than her,I really do not know of anyone who has left our film school to becomea star.

For the other majors, there are probably the one or two successstories. Other than the local heroes and congressmen our school putsout, our school just isn’t very recognizable in the nationalspectrum. While we make a big deal about an international businessprogram ranked 11th by U.S. News and World Report, other schoolswould scoff and pump more funds into a similar program to make it atop 10.

Considering SDSU is a state-funded university, it is really hardto blame the students, the faculty or even the top administrators.Most high school valedictorians just don’t seem interested in goingto state colleges, whether it be in California or Oregon, especiallyif they receive acceptance letters from Yale, Stanford or Harvard.

While it may not be our fault that our athletic teams suck, ourscholastic departments are unrecognized and our diversity is underappreciated, we, the students, can be the solution. There are manyopportunities to get involved, to get good grades and to makeconnections with large-scale, nationally recognized companies andprograms. The alumni can also help by throwing back some money intoour underfunded (and often outdated) programs. It takes a movementfrom those at the bottom to put this school back at the top. While wemay have lost a symbolic leader in Monty Montezuma a few years back,that does not mean we cannot rally our teams to victory, ourdepartments to higher rankings and our education to higher limits. Weare the only hope to keep our beloved school from the deep hole ofinsignificance.

– Rudy De La Torre is a social science senior.

– This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of TheDaily Aztec. Send e-mail to letters@thedailyaztec.com.Anonymous letters will not be printed – include your fullname, major and year in school.