Have I met you before?

By Mel Cassel
2010 CSPA Counselor

As I walked up to the familiar peach-colored building sporting a humble “Lassen” sign, I half-expected to see the faces of CSPA 2009.  After all, those faces define CSPA in my memory-filled mind.  They were the faces I scrambled to class with, the faces I glanced at while pounding rapidly on my snow-colored keyboard to meet deadlines, and the faces I waved goodbye to as I departed from Cal Poly last July.  Those faces were CSPA.  Or so I thought.

As I have become acquainted with 26 new, bright, smiling faces over the past few days, I have reached a conclusion.  A conclusion important enough to be shared with the entire world on the world wide web.

It’s true.  those faces, the 2009 CSPA faces, were CSPA.  But these faces, the 2010 faces, are also CSPA.

The 2010 faces are characterized by different freckles and different dimples and
different bone structures.  They house different smiles and different smirks and
different grimaces.  But underneath those different freckles and dimples and bone structures and smiles and smirks and grimaces, they share a whirlwind of commonalities with the faces of 2009.  These faces show the same determination, the same passion, the same drive for excellence.  They are ridden with the same intelligence as the 2009-ers’- their smiles are painted with the same wit and cleverness.

I realize now that it certainly wasn’t the physical features that made last year’s faces so memorable (well, for the most part… just kidding).  Rather, it was the personalities behind the faces that etched permanent memories into my mind.  And the same personalities have shown up at Cal Poly for CSPA 2010. That, I am sure of.

These faces are precisely what make CSPA such a special place.  Of course, the classes are wonderful and the teachers are inspiring, but the faces, the students of CSPA, are one-of-a-kind.  Nowhere else will you meet a group of 16 and 17-year old kids with the amount of motivation and drive as the students here.  At CSPA, canniness seeps out of the students’ pores; astuteness rolls off tongues like marbles.

So, yes, as I glance around the classroom this year, sure, I see different faces.  Physically.  But if I close my eyes, even just for a couple minutes, I hear comments and observations that nearly echo those from last year.  So I’m predicting another magical two weeks- two weeks full of sagacity, great insight and the passion of an olympian.  Because these qualities are what make the faces of CSPA, well, the faces of CSPA.