El Camino College has 47 years worth of history and takes up roughly 26 acres of land. The farthest distance I’ve had to walk across campus is from Parking Lot H to the Humanities Building.

I’m not a stranger to this trip and it isn’t painful, but it is really dull. When I was new to campus about two years ago, I’d dart my eyes back and forth in an attempt to find something amusing.

The buildings looked nice and pretty, but ultimately I wasn’t interested in anything I saw. Nowadays when I walk to class I just look straight ahead.

However, ECC does have some sort of decoration. There are street-pole flags stretching across most of campus that show off prestigious and famous alumni that have walked the campus as well as all of the opportunities ECC gives its students.

But there’s little to be seen around campus that displays ECC’s history.

Old editions of Warrior Life magazine dating back to the 1960s and 1970s are fascinating because of what the students of the time were writing about and how much in common we share with them.

But to be honest, the best part about reading the magazines is getting to look at the photographs of ECC.

By looking at past copies of Warrior Life I was able to find out that parking on campus was a well-documented issue in the 60s. The football and baseball fields have stayed in the same locations this whole time. And according to the spring 1997 edition of Warrior Life, there was even an ECC roller hockey team.

The history of ECC was something I never stopped to think about until reading these magazines. It never really hit me that the campus hasn’t always looked like it does now.

But unfortunately there’s no easy way to know about all of this history.

Seeing the college embrace its history would instill a sense of pride in me. I’d truly feel like I’m part of the college’s history and I would be motivated to do better academically.

The library has resources both physical and digital to see historical photos of the college, but what I really want is for the photos to be integrated into the daily life of the campus.

That doesn’t mean ECC needs to be painted with murals that span across 20-foot walls, but it would be really enjoyable if walls in hallways showed some old photos of students and the campus. It would be especially cool if the photos related to the buildings they were in.

The new Student Services Building has plenty of wall space that could be adorned with photos of students graduating or interacting in the old Student Services Building.

The walls in the hallways of the Humanities Building are begging for old photos of student journalists at work, students reading poetry aloud before their classmates and classes collaborating on written assignments.

Street poles close enough to ECC’s athletic venues are the perfect space for banners of former athletes from the sports those venues host.

The softball field already does this but the idea should be extended out campus-wide.

The exterior of the South Gym could be lightened up with photos of volleyball and basketball players.

The new gym complex being built could easily have pictures of badminton, basketball, and volleyball players on its walls.

The Physics Building has a fun painting that’s complete with an old Chevrolet El Camino car. I really appreciate the energy of the painting and I want the campus to be full of things just like it.

I want to walk down the sidewalks and see the lineage of normal everyday students that attended ECC before me. I want to see pictures of the great achievements earned by students of the past.

It was only after enrolling into ECC’s journalism program and having a chance to flip through previous editions of Warrior Life, that I became more intrigued with our college’s history.

By painting photos of ECC’s history around campus or by even just having more decorations that honor the past, more students would be able to appreciate ECC and they wouldn’t have to exert as much energy as I did to draw that conclusion.

ECC is a campus that has been established since 1947 and has a lot of history. In an age where construction is ruling over campus, it would be great if ECC gave a nod to its roots.