While I was looking at colleges around the country, Penn State wasn't even a consideration. The big schools I were looking at were mainly West Coast schools: UC Berkeley, UC Davis, University of Washington, and University of Oregon. And then there were a few random schools: University of Wisconsin (my parents met there) and Boston University. I added Penn State in because:
1. I've spent every summer and every other winter on the East Coast, due to my family living in Connecticut, Pennsylvania, and Maryland, and I wanted to give living here a try.
2. My uncle and cousin both attended Penn State and loved it.
However, when I visited last summer, I wasn't very impressed (looking back on it, I believe this impression was due to exhaustion because I hadn't been home in a month and a half). So as soon as I got accepted, PSU was essentially crossed off the list. I wanted a big school in a big city (or so I thought). As I traveled around looking at all of my schools, I was given the option to take a quick side trip out to State College again after I finished looking at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. For some reason (to this day I still don't know why, although I'm a firm believer in fate) I decided to go see Penn State one last time. And, of course, I really liked it. So, I eventually narrowed it down to UC Davis and Penn State. 286 miles (a five hour drive) away from home vs. 2,700 miles (a six hour flight) away from home. The deciding factor wasn't the price. It wasn't the distance. It was the fact that ten of my friends were attending Davis and I needed to leave high school behind and try something new. Well, that and Penn State had a lot to offer. So, on May 1, 2012, I made my decision. And here I am!
In these two weeks since I've lived in State College there have been a lot of adjustments that I've had to make. One in particular has been pretty major. Adjusting to living in the middle of nowhere. I'm used to being able to jump in my car drive five minutes and arrive at the beach, drive an hour and arrive in Santa Barbara (fun shopping day trip with friends or the fambam), drive two hours and arrive in Pebble Beach or Tahoe/Yosemite (skiing), drive three and arrive in LA, or drive four and arrive in San Fran/Berkeley. And along the way to all of these places are small towns with good food, shopping, and entertainment (well, if you stick fairly close to the coast, don't go towards the Central Valley - gross). Here, well, there's Penn State, and College Ave. But... that's about it till you drive the 3ish hours or so and hit Philly or Pittsburgh. Or at least that's how it seems to someone from out of state. So when Sheila announced that not only would we be learning basic composition and rhetoric, but we would be learning about the arts in State College, I was surprised. I'm hoping that through this class I will discover there is more to State College, and Pennsylvania, than meets the eye.
