Penn State: My first day and how I got here

Hello internet! My name is Peerapat and I am about to begin my 3rd year of the MEng Aeronautics & Astronautics course. I would like to welcome you to a series of blog posts about my student exchange experience at Penn State University, USA. In this first blog post, I will be writing about my very first day in University Park (Penn State’s main campus) in State College, Pennsylvannia.

After a day or two of travelling, I arrived at the University Park Campus, State College, PA! It was a series of exhausting train, aeroplane, subway and coach journeys. Being an aerospace engineering student, I carefully planned the aeroplane segment, and was looking forward to it.

So I flew on the Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner. Out of Gatwick (not Heathrow, as many would expect).

The journey was definitely one to remember. It was a compromise between the price and comfort. Norwegian Air was the only low-cost carrier operating from London to New York. Strict luggage allowance of 20 kilograms was enforced. That meant a fairly heavy 10+ kilograms of carry-on items that I carry through the bustling departure area of Gatwick Airport onto the aeroplane. Quite frankly, the flight deserves a completely separate blog post in its own right – there was so much I wanted to share! Let’s just say at the end of the flight, I was given the wonderful opportunity to sit down in the pilot’s seat and take some pictures of the cockpit. It was a ‘dream’ come true on the ‘Dreamliner’!

I made my way down the NYC subway with pieces of heavy luggage and stayed a night in New York. The hostel was awesome and they even gave me a free pair of flip flops, a towel and a set of toiletries. It was one of the cheapest hostels I could find in Manhattan. If you are well-inclined, you can read my trip report on TripAdvisor.  The journey on MegaBus departed from the 34th St on a very rainy day in New York and the driver stopped at a small town en route for the passengers to buy their lunch (the choice was limited to Subways or sandwiches – I had a cheese & ham baguette, a chocolate cookie and a can of ‘Mountain Dew’). The bus boasted free ‘Broadband-speed’ WiFi and power sockets. The former was unfortunately true only for the first hour of the journey as we left The Big Apple and the latter belonging to my seat was faulty.

I suppose the first impression I had of State College was of how big the roads were. State College appeared to be a small-medium sized town and I was not expecting the roads to be big (by big I meant 8-lane roads, dual carriageways – it’s America after all). What also striked me as I arrived into State College was how cars did not have licence plates in front of their cars, which made them appear as if their mouths had been shut. My roommate later told me that this is a ‘Pennsylvania thing’ and of course, regulations vary from state to state.

The bus dropped about 10 souls at the town’s mega-sized ‘Wal-Mart’, which is where I did my shopping later that day. The first thing I did once I got on the ground was call the Directorate of International Students & Scholars Advising (DISSA) as they provided a free pick-up service (similar to Southampton’s Meet & Greet) for international students. The number of people left on the grounds of the Wal-Mart car park diminished fairly quickly as people were being picked up by taxis and friends and some 10-20 minutes later, it was only me and the other 2 Europeans from Denmark and France. We were told over the phone to wait 30 minutes, but it was in fact a 40-minute wait and we were greeted by this lady from DISSA called Chelsea.

Chelsea is a Pennsylvania local from Altoona, not far from State College. She arrived in a typical American SUV. As Chelsea drove us to our temporary accommodation, I sat in the seat next to her and took pictures of myself being on the ‘wrong side of the road’ (or literally the right side). The Danish guy, Philip, and I were fortunate enough to be neighbours for our temporary accommodation. Philip is, like me, a 1-semester exchange student. His course (or rather ‘major’, as people call it here) is marketing and communications. As we did not know anyone here, we decided to stick together as we settle into this new environment.

My roommate, Jay (or rather Jay-Hyun) is a Korean transfer student from Buffalo. He majors in Economics and good news – he’s got a car! We spent a little time unpacking as we are only staying here temporarily. Jay drove us to Wal-Mart and we bought the essentials. I was surprised to see that duvets are not sold individually like in the UK and you’d have to buy bedding sets, and a separate pillow. I suppose at this stage my 1-kg bedding pack (bed sheet, duvet cover and pillow cover) will have to remain in my luggage for the rest of the time then! I spent a whopping $70+ on my shopping and I realised on check-out that for every item you buy, VAT sales tax is added at the check-out. This, frankly, makes me feel a bit uncomfortable as a customer. I would very much like to know the exact price of what I am buying when I select the item, without having to do percentage adding calculations. Oh well, another welcome to America I suppose.

Here’s what my American friend commented on the sales tax (rather than the VAT). Thank you Philip! (added 18/08/2014)

“It’s called “Sales Tax” here, not VAT, and it also varies by state and municipality. Pennsylvania’s is only 6%, while Philadelphia’s is 7% and Delaware has 0% sales tax. This is also why tax is not included in posted prices because it varies by location; large chains would have too much trouble trying to coordinate different posted prices by state.”

We decided to go to Denny’s for our dinner. It is a typical American restaurant with burgers. An American I met later in the day referred to it as a ‘trashy restaurant’ that you might go once in a while. Quite frankly, the sight of oily bacon and big chips (or rather, ‘fries’) made me feel fatter instantly. Apart from the bacon burger, I ordered an iced tea, and later found out that the drinks are in fact bottomless. Of course, at the end of the meal, it was time to work out the tip as the tipping culture is quite a thing here. The total cost of my meal was $11 and I was told by Jay to add some $2-3 to it. There went my $14 on my first dinner in State College.

That’s all about my first day in State College. I cannot wait to tell you about the orientation programme and the people I have met so far in my upcoming blog post! Good bye for now.