Top 10 tips for a year at Penn State

When you first turn up, Penn State can be slightly overwhelming, with its uniform of navy and white and the chants of “We are” being taught religiously to all the international students. But you quickly settle in, with classes and these tips should hopefully help you make the most of your year.

1. Going abroad requires a lot of paperwork

As a geologist, I had to spend the whole of my summer before going to the States mapping in Spain. This meant that I had to sort out all my paperwork before summer exams as I had very limited internet access while doing fieldwork. Due to my time constraints and lack of organisation, I almost didn’t manage to organise a visa appointment at the US embassy before leaving for my field trips. This is less of an issue for those who have no summer constraints, but I would recommend sorting out all the paperwork as early as possible.

During the summer, I also received lots of emails telling me that I had to choose all my first semester modules before I arrived. Contacting previous Southampton geology students who had been to Penn State helped me better pick modules that I’d be interested in. But don’t worry too much about it, I had a meeting with my advisor when I first arrived at Penn State, and he really helped me sort out my module choices.

2. Travelling to Penn State

The first time I arrived at Penn State, I flew to the State College airport via Detroit. This ended up being quite an expensive way to get to State College, but it did give me a bit of peace of mind for my first time travelling to a new place. By far the cheapest way to get to State College is to fly to New York and then take a Megabus to State College.

3. Study like you’re back at school

My classes were generally much smaller than in Southampton, with about 5-45 students, and a much stronger focus on interactions between the professor and the students. All my lecturers offered office hours or had TAs to help if you got stuck on any of the work. Also, exchange students are some of the last to be able to sign up to classes, meaning that classes are often full by the time you try to sign up. However, every time this happened I contacted the professors, and they always managed to add me to the classes.

I had some inspiring lecturers over the past year, with researchers at the forefront of their field who were really enthusiastic about what they did. They made some of my classes interesting and completely unlike what I could have studied in Southampton. However, some of my other classes were taught to only A-level standard and examined in the same way my pre-GCSE classes were. Therefore, I’d definitely talk to the American students when you’re there to find out which lecturers are good or not.

Penn State offers some weird and wonderful options, with students opting to study anything from skiing and fly fishing to ballroom dancing and pottery to fulfil their “Gen Ed” requirements. While I decided not to take any of these courses as they didn’t fit with my schedule, it is part of the typical American college experience and can be a fun way to learn a new skill.

4. Get used to sharing a room

So, I was quite lucky, in first semester I never got a roommate, and in the second semester, I got along really well with my roommate. I did, however, find it quite strange to move into student dorms with a residential advisor (RA) living on each floor, after having lived in my own house in Southampton. This was especially the case as it was a dry campus, with no alcohol allowed in dorms, making it a completely different experience from first-year student accommodation back home.

I didn’t mind sharing a room, but I hated not being able to cook for myself for a year. The canteen food was okay, but it definitely got very uninspiring, especially towards the end of the semester. To help with this, I made sure to always have frozen fruit in my room and stuff to make breakfast every day. I also liked to use the takeaway option from the canteen to be able to make my lunch

5. Travel can be harder than you expected (but do it anyway)

Contrary to my expectations before leaving the UK, it is not that easy to travel every weekend and visit all of the US during a year abroad. Travelling can be quite difficult and expensive without a car. State College is in the middle of Pennsylvania, and while there are local buses to take you around town and big coaches to take you to the major cities, travel takes a long time, and you can’t easily visit any local towns. Instead, I did most of my travelling during the holidays, with my weekend trips rarely going further than the 5-hour coach journey to New York.

Over Thanksgiving, I went to Washington DC using Zimride after all my buses got cancelled at the last minute. It’s a car sharing service which turned out to be simple and easy. In DC, there is free entry to most of the museums and a lot of the sites, so it is well worth the visit. For spring break, I flew to Vancouver, after being delayed by several large nor’easters (winter storms) in the region. While not the typical spring break destination, it was a great experience to do some proper solo travelling and to visit a really beautiful place.

You have 30 days after your visa ends to travel around the US during the summer. I used this time to travel around the West Coast and to meet up with my family before going back to the UK. I loved the stunning scenery in Utah and Yosemite and would recommend these places to anyone travelling around the US.

6. Go outside!

   

So, although I previously said that travel around Pennsylvania could be difficult, there are multiple organisations on campus which facilitate many outdoorsy trips in the region. I got involved in the Penn State Outing Club, through which I got to go on several great backpacking trips, in Pennsylvania, New York and West Virginia. These weekend trips were a great way to meet new people and get to know more about the countryside.

The university-led Adventure Recreation also offered lots of day and weekend activities, as well as longer trips over the breaks.

7. Football is a way of life for Penn Staters in the fall semester

American football is an inescapable part of student life at Penn State, and with one of the biggest stadiums in the world going to a game is an unforgettable experience (even if you don’t understand what is going on like I did). However, tickets can be quite expensive so to get for free; I would recommend volunteering as an usher. I volunteered through the EMS student council and worked in the main section of the stadium, but it is also possible to volunteer as a student usher where you work in the student section for the first 30 minutes of the game and then get shown to your seat. Helpful hint – try to look up some of the rules before going to the games otherwise you could end up as confused as me.

8. Be prepared for five months of snow

Okay, so maybe I’m a tad bitter as we had an unusually long winter, with snowfall between mid-November and late April, changing me from someone who was seriously excited about the lightest flurry to someone who groaned whenever I read the weather forecast. (Quick disclaimer: most people I spoke to said that it was one of the longest winters they’d ever experienced at Penn State).

But it’s not all bad; we had hot summery weather until late October and a short autumn where the trees all went beautiful colours. So, make sure to pack stuff for all weathers as we experienced anything from 37°C to -18°C over the ten months I lived there.

9. Penn State pride

When I first turned up on campus, I found it strange how everyone was wearing some sort of Penn State clothing (including infants, children, adults and pensioners) and how many of the shops in the town were only selling themed gear. Now, as I’ve been travelling around America and Europe wearing my very own Penn State clothing I’ve had loads of people come up to me to talk about their experience of studying at Penn State. It’s not really something we do as much in the UK, but I quite like it now and have loads of my own Penn State t-shirts.

10. Have fun!

Studying at Penn State provided me with lots of opportunities that I wouldn’t have gotten in Southampton. I discovered backpacking (which is one of my new favourite things), I took ice skating lessons (not very successfully but it’s not that common to live only a 20-minute walk from an indoor ice rink) and met people from all over the world. It was a year in which I was pushed outside my comfort zone, and although I definitely felt very lonely at times, I’m glad I decided to study abroad.