Pennsylvania State University
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Pennsylvania State University - Comments and Student Experiences | |||||||||||||||||||
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Academics are decent. I'm pre-med and have found that the department is pretty good, very resourceful, and wants to send its students to medical school. If you take action, there are many opportunities to get involved in research, teaching, volunteerism, and clubs. Most of my classes have been 100+ students, but if you sit up front and make an effort then the professors will usually be very approachable and get to know you. Some professors are highly absorbed in their research and put very little effort into teaching, but this is common at big research universities. Perhaps the most troubling thing i've encountered has been the lack of standardization in some courses. Some courses can be incredibly difficult with one professor, but then easy with another. In addition, the format and material taught may be totally different.
Grades are pretty competitive, and most students value working the system to get a good grade above actually learning the material. However, I don't feel that the student body is too intelligent (generally), so if you're pretty smart then you can easily shine. Grades are only curved if the average grade in the class falls below a C+. In this case, it's curved so that the average is a C+. Some professors will curve to a B+. I think there is big grade deflation early on, in the big weed out courses such as intro chemistry, calculus, and biology. Then grade inflation later on in the upper level courses. I'm not a fan of grade inflation, because it dilutes the achievement of the super smart. Penn State really needs to implement an A+ grade, being worth the same as an A on a 4.0 scale, but just for the distinction.
I could only take a year of PSU and transferred out of there asap. I’m glad I did.
My major beefs with PSU are that I felt that they somewhat deceived me. Example, I was looking for a large, DIVERSE, school spirited, challenging University. I got two of those... it's large and the school spirit is out of control! I truly miss that aspect sometimes. But, it's definitely not diverse and I didn't find it particularly challenging. So first let’s talk about diversity. I went to a very yuppie white high school and was looking to branch out in college and meet different people from different backgrounds. When I went to PSU for a tour they put all us students in a room and talked to us about how great the school was blah blah blah. They had the frat boy, the token black guy, the geeky science girl... everything was covered... I bought it. I thought wow I’ll find my click and there are so many different people here. LIE!!! This is the least diverse school ever! It was literally my high school on a larger level. It's pretty much the same white girl in uggs, tights, and a north face with highlighted hair and probably a fake tan and a hundred frat boys with PSU sweatshirts. Honestly zero diversity. Oh and everyone I talked too about PSU said it was such a difficult school to get into and challenging when you got there. Ok I honestly didn't really have that experience. I felt I did nothing and pulled off great grades with little effort. Maybe it's because the school is just all dumb PA kids... ok well that's harsh there are a lot of smart kids and they're not all frat boys and pretty girls BUT the fact that my bio/chem major roommate got a 4.0 her first year makes me really question how difficult this University truly is.
Another HUGE issue I had with PSU was with orientation. Since I wasn't from PA I really didn't know that many people who had gone to PSU and was looking forward to meeting people and making friendships. Well... didn't happen. My RA did a shit job and we maybe spent all of 20 minutes meeting people on the floor and saying two words about ourselves. No ice breakers, no dumb games to get to know each other, NOTHING! So my roomie and I (who I did love) left our door open and tried to get to know people. No one cared. Everyone else had there doors shut and that's how it was going to be. Let me remind you that my experience was just unfortunate event after unfortunate event and that I'm sure it's not always this bad a PSU... but for me it was. Continuing... I soon found out that I was put in an all girl dorm (asked for coed) and was with people who already knew their roommates (choose them) or had gone to summer session and already knew people. Therefore no one needed to make any new friends. My roomie and I tried and neither of us succeeded in making friends with these crazy bitches. Anyway, some highlights of my freshman year were... putting up Christmas decorations and having them torn down multiple times by drunk dumbass people (like I said we didn't even know anyone on the floor of 60!!! girls and didn't have any known enemies) we even made a bet on how long our St. Patrick’s Day decorations would last (considering PSU is all alcoholics and changed St. Patty’s day b/c it feel during spring break to STATE Paddy’s day to make sure they got there drinking in you WOULD think people would embrace the decorations… no) torn down in a week. Having stuff written on our door (every door on the floor actually). EVERY weekend waking to throw up all over the bath room... oh yeah the bathrooms are gross!!! At least in the east dorms. Stay away from east! Go for west or south.
Ok so my experience was that the girls were bitches and that the guys were kinda ... um... hickish. God I sound awful but they called me dirty jerz so whatevs.
My main issues with PSU were that there was NOTHING for me to do on weekends. I would go to football games, gymnastic meets (guys won nationals!), and movies but i don't drink therefore my time at PSU was a waste! WARNING: if you do not party or drink DO NOT go to this school b/c you'll be bored shitless and you'll end up babysitting someone or stepping in someone else’s puke. yum. I tried really hard to find things to do on weekends but since i didn't drink i was pretty much seen as an outsider cause everyone at PSU is an achoholic. Not kidding. One of my friends came to an exam tipsy. WTF.
I also was under the impression that i could easily take a bus or something to Philly but not the case. Stuck in "happy valley" with a town a centimeter big was torture. If you need to be near a city don't go here. I went crazy! Oh and the weather SUCKS! I flurried everyday during spring semester when i was there. So depressing.
Ok now that i ranted I'll tell you some good things. The profs really care about there students and embrace PSU. Like I said school spirit is out of control. One time i was waiting online for a comedy show and we had been waiting soooooooo long... soon enough PSU chants started! People were surfing the line, it was a lot of fun! It's really safe. The class you can take at the gym white building like step and kickboxing are GREAT! Football is an experience though the school I go to now is better (RU) lol there is nothing like a PSU game.
Personally I know a lot of people who had a great time at PSU and I still have some good friends that go there but in the long run i knew it wasn't right for me and i'm glad i transferred.
Overall... college is truly what you make of it! I probably could have put more of an effort into making PSU a great experience but with factors i couldn't control (like the weather and location) I honestly wouldn't choose this school. Hope this was informative...?
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