Penn State is one of my favorite colleges I have ever been to, there is literally something there for everyone. It is located in State College, Pennsylvania, the name of the town says a lot. Penn State is the definition of a college town, I think if the college didn’t exist it would just be a field with corn and maybe an Amish house. For a college town though it is not overwhelming, walking around during the middle of the school day and going through several buildings it felt like a medium sized college, but it has over 90,000 students enrolled. The campus is easily traversed for as expansive as it is, we parked at one end of the campus at Beaver stadium and walked all the way to the opposite side in about 20 minutes, and even if you do not want to walk all buses are free with your student ID. 

I visited the university specifically for the Engineering tour, therefore I have much more information on that, but I feel like the administration and students did a good job at giving an overview of the whole university. The engineering program has great connections with companies that its students can work for after college, some companies even run a co-op with Penn State where students will work the summer with a company. A few of these companies include: Microsoft, Apple, Google, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Nasa, SpaceX, and even the United States Department of Defense. The administrators I talked to while there did suggest that if I am planning on going into engineering that I apply early and declare that as my major, as the program is very competitive.

The area around the college is very open but once you travel about 25-30 minutes from campus it is mountainous, they have several ski slopes near by that students can get discounted season passes for. It is definitely not a city school, the tallest building around there is without a doubt Beaver Stadium, the third largest stadium in the world only behind Michigan and North Korea’s Rungrado Stadium. Downtown, if you can even call it that, has a bunch of cute little shops and numerous dining establishments. The students I spoke to said that Penn State is what you make it, If you want it to feel like a large college you can go to the sporting events whenever you get a chance and live in mid campus, party, and join a ton of clubs; but if you want it to feel smaller you can selectively join things live at a periphery dorm, and make a tight knit group of friends. I got the same feeling walking around the campus.

The University offers about any club or sport you could ask for. The sports they off come at a D1 level club and intramural level. They have anything ranging from Alpine skiing to Quidditch to Volleyball. They have greek life if that is important to you, but they also have religious groups, and educational clubs as well. They have community service clubs as well, one group of engineers went to columbia and built a bridge for a small community to get them better access to clean drinking water. The highlight of the university though is the creamery, they once had two students take their ice cream class named Ben and Jerry, they went on to make Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream those two only got an A- in the class though so that is how you know this ice cream must good. 

I would definitely recommend Penn State for almost anyone there is something here that everyone can find to do. I honestly can’t find a single negative about Penn State other than the tuition, but they have AFROTC which is how I plan on helping out on that front. I think that almost anyone could make Penn State their home and succeed here. I will definitely apply, and I hope that many more students look at Penn State as a serious option for them.