BY AARON JAFFE
PRIDE STAFF WRITER

All students at Cal State San Marcos must know what the LOTER is and what needs to be done to make it happy.
LOTER stands for Language Other Than English Requirement and it is necessary for graduation.
CSUSM wants its students to be “prepared for the demands of a diverse and globalizing world. So every student must demonstrate a proficiency in a language other than English.”
What does this mean though? What determines proficiency? Well the Language learning center answers that question with seven choices to fulfill the requirement.
I found this information sounded great on paper. However, after my experiences with the LOTER, my views have begun to shift.
As a speaker of a foreign language that is not offered at CSUSM (Chinese), I sought out to satisfy the LOTER.
To take the CSUSM proficiency exam, I found that I needed to pay $49.50 (down from $65.00 last semester) to prove that I am proficient in reading and writing. If I passed both portions then I would satisfy the LOTER If I failed, then I would need to re-pay the fee for each subsequent test until I pass or give up.
In the entire 23-campus California State University system, only seven require foreign language for graduation. Out of those seven, CSUSM and CSU Monterey Bay have the most stringent requirements. Out of those seven campuses the proficiency testing costs from nothing to $10 everywhere except CSUSM.
The Language Learning Center (LLC) states that the “exam is looking for proficiency – not fluency – at the standard CSUSM 201-level” and goes on to state that “if you are testing in a language taught on campus, you are welcome to come to the LLC to review the 201-level textbook, to ensure that you comfortable with that level.” But if the language is not offered on campus they have dictionaries available. I am not sure how much help the dictionaries are though for level-specific exams.
Since CSUSM does not offer my language, the LOTER can be satisfied by attending classes at another school, which sounds great at first. What happens if you receive financial aid and cannot afford the drop from full time (12 units or more) status to part time status?
I spent four years of high school learning Spanish so I decided it would be wise to fulfill the LOTER in Spanish. The problem here is that more than two years have passed since my last class. The chart provided on the LOTER website says that I had to enroll in a 101 level class. For students with less than two years of difference from the last time they took a foreign language class they are told to take Spanish 201 right off the bat (which would satisfy the LOTER). There is no placement exam.
I found that in my Spanish 101 class that I and many of my peers knew the vast majority of all the material. I also found that there were students that truly needed to learn the introductory material. This presents a unique environment for professors as they are now forced to teach students that have a wide gap in comprehension levels.
In talking to a pair of professors who wanted to remain anonymous, they stated that “it is the consensus of the faculty in the foreign language department that there needs to be a placement test because the skill gap affects students greatly.”  They also remarked how “ridiculous” it was that some students could not graduate on schedule because they needed to fit unnecessary foreign language classes into their schedules due to the lack of a placement exam and because the proficiency exam carried such a hefty cost.
Jon Fuzell, a History major transfer student from Mira Costa summed up the majority of students’ opinions that I spoke with in that “the LOTER is as necessary as the computer competency requirement was, and we all saw what happened with that.” He continued to state that “it is hard enough to fit classes as it is into our schedules without having to force a third level foreign language course in.”
So please heed the LLC’s warning: “To prevent a delay in graduating, do not wait until junior or senior year!” My only real question is, what about ALL of the transfer students that are unaware of the LOTER prior to enrollment?