RantsAndRaves

Holy crap! (That was edited for all those that have sensitive ears) I just completed 1/8 (or 1/9... or 1/10... or 1/11... etc) of my time here at Penn State. That went by sooooo much quicker than a half year in high school. There is just too much stuff to do here that I did not have the chance to keep track of time. To my (pleasant) surprise, that "too much stuff" did not include that much more work. Don't get me wrong, I did work. But after listening to stories from my mother that attempted to scare me about how tough college is and how much work I'll have to do, I was happy to not have tons of work. Yeah college is tougher than high school. I went to a small school, Freeport Area Senior High School (I don't brag about my own accolades, but I like talking about my Alma Mater: it was a National Blue Ribbon school in 1997-98). Instead of shooting for and expecting straight A's as I did all through high school, I am now very content with A's, A-'s and B+'s.

I was warned about several things before coming to Penn State. "It's WAY too big!" "You're going to have 300 people in your classes!" "It costs soooo much!" "You had full scholarships to other places!"

Well to those comments, I answer in the following manner: It's soooo easy to make it feel small; 300? my biggest class this semester had about sixty people in it; agreed--the most expensive public university (I can't fight against dollars and cents; the numbers do not lie); I did have some offers--but I didn't want to go anywhere else. .

There is literally so many things to do here (again, I mean besides work)!! Seriously, if anyone reading this was bored in State College this semester, that was your own damn fault. Meeting new friends, going to football games, going to basketball games, going to parties, doing things with my THON Morale group, playing IM football, attending pep rallies. Oh yeah, I went to class and did some work occasionally. But seriously, I am so glad I chose Penn State.

A lot of my friends and family often asked me why I did not at least apply to Harvard or Yale or some of those so-called "upper echelon" schools. First off, Penn State is, in my book, an "upper echelon" school for any major, but especially mine. I tried hard to find justification for going to Harvard or Yale or Princeton (who, by the way, got crushed by us in basketball on 12/12). I could not. Seriously, what do you know about Harvard's Information Sciences and Technology program?? I could not find anything on the internet about its notoriety. Penn State is the place to be for IST. I touched on what I thought about IST 110H in a separate blog post because I knew this one would be quite long.

Now that I vented about the anger I have when people do not consider PSU a good academic school, I'll turn my attention to something else about college: the experience. I can understand people trying to say that Harvard may be a better school because of the type of people that graduate from there. Let's face the numbers for just a second: IST is Penn State's major with the highest average starting salary ($60,000-ish). Don't get me wrong that is a lot, but Harvard turns out graduates that make a lot more than that. To that I say "Who gives a flying fudge?" (<--once again, for sensitive ears)

At Penn State, I get something that money can never buy: one hell of a college experience. Let me make my point by comparing Penn State to another school. In the following paragraph, I used Harvard as a comparison, but in most cases, Harvard can be replaced by any other "upper echelon" school you can think of. OK, here it goes.

Harvard students can never say that they were part of the greatest student section on Earth. I can. Harvard students can never say that they were part of the largest student-run philanthropy in the world. I can. Harvard students can have their big salaries, but they can never experience true school spirit. I can. Hell, Harvard students cannot even talk about their IST program being one of the elite programs in the country (that is fact, not just my opinion, by looking at some of the numbers). Anyway, I can. Harvard students can never say that they were part of one of the biggest party schools in the country. (Had throw that one in there) I can. Harvard students can never say that their school moved a national holiday (St. Patrick's Day). I can. Finally, Harvard students can never say "We Are Penn State." I can.

If there is one thing I can say that Penn State is great at, it is this. Penn State has EVERYTHING!!! I feel like I am at an institution that is world-renowned. At the same time, I feel like that I am at a university that has more school spirit than any other. As hard as Penn State students work in the classroom, I can also say that Penn State has a great social and fun atmosphere.

So, it's one semester down, at least seven more to go. It is one football season down, at least three to go. It is still at least four more THONs to go. It is 14 credits (33 if you count transferred credits) down, more than 100 credits to go. It is several social gatherings down, thousands to go. It is already about one hundred new people met, millions more to go. Most importantly, it is thousands of "We Are Penn State" cheers down, and an infinite more to go. Actually, let me bump one more out of the way by saying, proudly, "We Are Penn State!"