University by the Sea

I went down with my friend today to check it out.
No, we were not pre-​registered for any classes. Based on the descriptions, I hoped we could just walk around outside and look at the booths and view the ‘tunnel’. I think the web page could have been more specific in terms of what you could and could not depending on your registration status.
There were some things to look at but aside from an ice cream truck, we couldn’t find any food vendors. The people at the information booths were not very knowledgeable. They had no idea what we were talking about when we asked about the ‘tunnel’.
Perhaps if we’d enrolled in classes we would have better understood and appreciated the event. Like Heather N. said, there wasn’t that much to look at on the street.
I’d give this 2 stars except I won an all day bus pass from spinning the wheel and that made my day. I’m going to use it next Sunday for the Long Beach Marathon.

Hey Unilocalers — it’s year 2 for U-​Sea and we’ve got over 200 things to see and do, 60 classes ranging from «Swashbuckling» to «How to be a Drag Queen» and Unilocalers get 20% off when they use promocode: Unilocal

This event needs to be refined. Classes filled up quickly and we were only go to one. We appricated the free food and drinks in the classes. Outside of the classes there wasn’t much to see on the street. It seemed as if it was thrown together. The tours of the underground tunnel also sold out super quick and I heard many people were upset by this. I am sure as the years go on it will grow in popularity and offer more things to do. Keep going with it guys.

I really enjoyed the University by the Sea festival for a variety of reasons, but most of all I thought it makes a great complement to Kaleidoscope.
Kaleidoscope (
) is CSULB’s annual open house, a sort of family fun and educational festival held on the CSULB campus every spring. I went to the first Kaleidoscope in 1985 with my family, and I only remember a few things — we got to try this BRAND NEW kind of pizza that had just opened up in Long Beach (Domino’s!) — and I remember the science van (
), which was and still is a really cool traveling exhibit of fun, hands-​on science exhibits. But CSULB is off on the far east side of Long Beach, and the campus is not all that accessible — I’m not sure how many people from other parts of Long Beach really go out of their way to attend Kaleidoscope. CSULB is sort of its own little planet, which is one reason why Long Beach isn’t really a «college town», despite having two colleges in the city.
So while Kaleidoscope attempts to bring the People to the University, I think the University by the Sea festival was a good effort in bringing the University to the People. As Vincent described in his review, the day was full of fun classes held at various restaurants and shops in downtown Long Beach, including cooking classes, wine tasting classes, classes in local history, politics, etc. Pine Ave. was blocked off and featured live art, music and dance performances, a Long Beach Armada pitching clinic, and even the ever-​present CSULB science van. I saw lots of little kids swarming the science van, their faces full of wonder as they got to play with giant magnets, see live reptiles, etc. — kids that might not otherwise have had such an opportunity to see science in action. I understand Kaleidoscope is important to bring people to the campus for recruitment, etc., but in a way I think University by the Sea is more relevant and did a better job of giving CSULB more of a direct presence in the community.
For a first time event, I thought it was remarkably well executed. I had no problem getting to my classes and finding out where to go, and it was great that there was free parking all day at any of the local parking structures. We were there from about 11:30am until about 6:30pm — Vince and I each went our separate ways for the different classes we signed up for. In addition to the formal classes, there were a lot of other things happening on Pine — in between classes I ended up attending a coffee tasting at Starbucks, which was remarkably informative for only a 15 minute session — and I got to attend a brief Beer and Politics (
) meeting, which gave me a good sense of what the group is about and made me think I might attend one of their regular meetings. I even got a short spin on a Segue while waiting in line for the tunnel. Although our main reason for going was to see the Jergins Tunnel, I’m really glad that we participated in the whole event, because it was a very good time. It was one of the more enjoyable street fairs I’d been to in a long time. I hope the event continues to take place on an annual basis.