Pennsylvania State University

Great place, lots of hot girls, drunk people, school spirit, and if you're majoring in engineering, expect a crap load of work coming your way, even in the first year. If you're taking college credit courses in high school (AP, IB, A-Levels) take those courses seriously and get those college credits which will definitely make life in the first year a lot easier.

We are located right smack in the middle of Pennsylvania. New York City is 5 hours away, Pittsburg is about 3, Philly is also 3, DC is about 5. We're pretty much isolated.

The people I've met thus far, well, just like any people anywhere, they could be bitches or awesome people. Social life itself all depends on who you hang out with, if the guys from your dorm floor knows places, you'll be partying almost every weekend. If you're an international and find peace within your own race, don't expect the same kind of excitement that the other kids are experiencing, in other words, life will be lame as hell.

Well, this school is huge, the population is about 40000, some of the streets during noon on a weekday will be packed. Beaver street the downtown area will be packed on weekdays, no questions asked.

Football weekends are great, although our team sucks nuts, all the students support the team, people from around Pennsylvania drive over for a weekend to watch the Lions play.Penn State is a great place, college rankings and high schoolers look down on Penn State way too much, for them, I have to say, "go fuck yourselves." Penn State is awesome, the academics really whoops the students' ass but we'll be mad prepared for the real life after graduation.

1st Year Male -- Class 2008

Education Quality: A+, Surrounding City: F

Alumnus Male -- Class 2000

Penn State does not hold your hand unless you attend a branch campus initially. Best branch to start:PSU Altoona because it's close to main campus and many of the profs teach at both schools plus you get all the benefits of main campus social/sport life without the huge class sizes your freshman year. I transferred to main after sophmore year and I had a great time there because I knew so many people from my major, altoona campus, having a job, etc. I could always go to a bar or a party and know someone. I was in psychology which is one of the biggest majors at main campus but the class sizes were rather decent and most of the profs were helpful. PSU helped me in the real world because it taught me how to advocate for myself. My only disappointment was that some profs thought they were too important to take the time to write me a decent grad school recommendation. One of my reference letters from a prof was so terrible that the school I applied at sent it back to me and I had to find someone else to write me an academic recommendation. I even took the time to create a profile script for the profs so they had some info to go off of. Fortunately my fr/so advisor at altoona remembered me and was more than willing to help me out. I even worked in one prof's research lab and he avoided me for months before he finally wrote one. Other than that I had a great time but I was also independent, responsible, and loved to party. If you are a bookworm who hates drinking and small town mentality then you won't like it here. But how many places are there where the whole town caters to college students? Which is why I loved PSU most of all.

Alumnus Male -- Class 2000