Penn State University Park is home to over 40,000 undergraduate students. With a campus that is over 8,000 acres, you can sometimes feel like a small fish in a big pond. This was something that used to scare me when I was thinking about picking a school, but now the large size is my favorite part.
Like a lot of people, I come from a small town. My graduating class size was 170, now it’s 9,000. That was a huge change for me. I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to adjust. What really surprised me though, was how quickly I was able to navigate campus and even find some favorite spots. Choosing a spot on campus that you like and is familiar to you can sometimes make it feel a little homier. Even if you don’t know the entire campus like the back of your hand just yet, you know that place and it definitely helps.
Senior Andrew Leite said that one of the easiest ways for him to make Penn State feel smaller was to find a special place. His was the Business Building, conveniently located right by East Halls.
“It was huge, air conditioned in the summer, and warm in the winter,” he said.
Senior Dana Cinque said that her favorite spot was the IST Building. She also offered some general advice that I remember hearing on one of my campus tours. “You can make a big school feel small, but you can’t make a small school feel big.”
Something that I never considered either was that I might enjoy the anonymity that a big school can bring. There’s something kind of liberating about walking around campus and getting to disappear a little.
Junior Claire Preston says that is her favorite part about Penn State. “I love being able to walk around campus and not see anyone I know, or see everyone I know, whichever one I need that day.”
There are the busier spots on campus like the HUB at lunch time- something that still overwhelms me to this day- where you know you’re going to run into tons of your friends. However, if you walk to a quieter spot, it can be nice to fade into the background.
The same thing goes for classes. Those giant lecture halls that everyone warns against aren’t so bad either. You get your fair share of small classes, especially once you’re an upperclassmen, but I always liked the lecture halls. If you have an early morning class and you don’t want to see anyone, you can sit in the back, get your notes, and not worry about it. However, if you want to make it feel more personal, make a friend in the class or take it with a friend who also needs those credits.
There are plenty of ways to make the large size of Penn State less intimidating- or ways to embrace it if you find you actually like it better that way.
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