It appears twice online, unlabeled on the page for the International Program here and as a stock photo for an educational program brochure- also unlabeled and with no clear connection to CSUMB.
In my research I’ve found that these are sometimes called “directional mileage” signs, and given that it references the study abroad program on one of its pointer arrows I assume it was handmade for the school, but beyond that no other information about it appears to exist online.
As far as I can tell, I’ll be the third person ever to put this thing on the internet. I’m happy about that, because this sign was always one of my favorite parts of campus. In my freshman year it was right on my walking path to my first year seminar class. It was nice to think about the world beyond my little bubble as I walked to one of my first real college classes. It encouraged me to pick a heading and go in that direction.
But sometime during the Gavilan Hall rebuild it was moved to the front of Building 48, and something went wrong.
If you don’t know, our streets align pretty closely to the cardinal directions. This probably originated with Fort Ord and all that military discipline,, and anyway the Pacific Ocean is right there., so when I walked by the original sign it was easy to check that Tokyo should be pointing pretty much due west. But when I passed it in its new location, it seemed off. I pulled out a compass app to check the headings of each sign, wrote them down, and after some mapping on Google Earth I confirmed my suspicions.
Here’s Sydney on the top: real heading in green vs the currently indicated direction in red. You can see it’s about 90 degrees from the direction it should be pointing. The heading for Sydney Australia goes over Carmel, fictional Sydney meanwhile is resting somewhere in the Arctic Circle.
Here’s Tokyo, just below. That same 90 degree offset. There’s something so beautiful about how that green line runs straight into the Pacific and off the edge of the world. I won’t show it, but one more for good measure, Bangkok is in the wrong direction too, also by 90 degrees.
Hypothetically the offset should be exactly the same each time, but I’m gonna be generous with myself and say it’s half measurement error on my part and half inaccuracy by the signmakers.
Regardless, whoever installed it the second time either checked their compass really badly or just didn’t care.
What was the point of all of this?
CSUMB, please fix this. Or don’t, but lampshade it somehow, maybe with a plaque. Don’t let it be forgotten and wrong for the rest of its life. In some indefinable way, seeing an object kept from fulfilling its purpose is sad. There are already excavators nearby digging the foundation for the Mechatronics building. Maybe they could take a side job.
And there’s a dangerous metaphor in a sign pointing the wrong direction. I’m not superstitious, but when it comes to something like this, why take a chance?