To make your transition to living in campus dorms easier, Penn State offers first year students the option to participate in Special Living Options (SLO). While I did not do SLO myself, I wish I would have known more about SLOs when I put in my housing contract. Like many other students, I was misguided in thinking that freshman only live in East Halls and some live in Pollock Halls. I hope to show you that that is not true and how awesome SLO can be!
A SLO is a close-knit community within the residence halls that participates in dinners, field trips, and other social events with students in your major or students that have similar interests to you. SLO also allows you to explore living options outside East and Pollock since some of them are located in South, North and West Halls.
To get a better understand of what a SLO is, here are a few examples:
Arts & Architecture House – This house is specific for those interested in majoring in art, music, architecture, theater arts, architectural engineering, and landscape architecture. The Arts & Architecture House is located in North Halls, which allows the residents to be in walking distance of the Visual Arts and Music Buildings and the Palmer Museum of Art.
Participating students have the ability to interact with faculty, go on field trips to historical sites and museums, have access to art studios, music practice rooms, seminar rooms and much more!
EARTH House – For those interested in environmental and agricultural issues, the EARTH House is for you. Located within Runkle Hall in North Halls, students have the ability to work closely with faculty members from the College of Agricultural Science. Participants get to take part in recycling efforts, visit organic farms, attend educational lectures and helps the community by participating in THON annually. The EARTH House also visits Shaver’s Creek Environmental Center regularly to help with their Maple Harvest Fest and to give trail tours.
Like the EARTH House, three other SLOs are located in North which allows them to work together and to have activities as a community. North also gives participants access to seminar rooms and other common areas that can be used for the SLO.
For more information visit: http://agsci.psu.edu/clubs/earthhouse
Women in Science and Engineering House (WISE) – Located in Wolf Hall in Pollock Halls, the WISE House offers residency to women who are involved in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics majors. The WISE House was created to give women a community that would help them through the challenging and mostly male majors. Participants are able to benefit from various social events, networking, educational programs, assistance academically and leadership positions. The WISE House is open to any Penn State female student, but preference is given to women enrolled in the Colleges of Agriculture, Earth and Mineral Studies, Engineering, Health and Human Development, Information Science and Technology, and the Eberly College of Science.
While I only mentioned a couple of different SLO options, there are plenty more for many different interests such as education, liberal arts, business, international language and much more! For more information on SLOs and how to apply, visit: http://www.hfs.psu.edu/housing/housing/special-living-options.cfm#ARTS
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