When you get here, you may be constantly asking yourself, “Why does the dining hall always close so early?” Yeah, you and everyone else on the meal plan. You are most certainly not alone looking for some food after 8pm. Thankfully, there are many food options just across College Ave with hours that better represent when a college student wants to eat. 

Stop #1. Yallah taco. Walk due South from the HUB and across College Ave, and you’ll stumble upon one of the top Mexican restaurants in State College. Easily recognizable with its bright colors and themed music, every student has to hit this place up at least once in their 4 years here. One mistake you do not want to make: Do not mix up Yallah taco with Yallah burrito. I don’t know what the deal is, but Yallah burrito is not worth visiting. If they are owned by the same company, they have some things to work out with the consistency of their brand. 

If Yallah wasn’t enough to fill your craving for Mexican cuisine, you have 2 other options just a two minute walk down the street from Yallah. Chipotle and El Jefe’s are both just off of College Ave, and if you plan on going to either of these chains around 10pm later in the week, plan on waiting in line because whenever I’ve tried to go at night both of these restaurants have been packed. I’m sure almost everyone has at least heard of Chipotle, but if you haven’t heard of El Jefe’s, they have indeed freed the guac (free guacamole with the purchase of any entrée). I would say, most definitely worth a try. 

Maybe after a hard night studying, you’re looking for something to satisfy your sweet tooth. Insomnia cookies know what they do best – cookies. I hear they will deliver warm cookies to your dorm. As an added bonus they don’t close until the wee hours of the morning so you can keep studying another hour after the library closes and still be able to grab a cookie before you start to get ready for bed. 

As someone who grew up in Wawa territory, it kind of hurts me to put it on the list, but Sheetz is an option here. – Unfortunately, wawa is not 🙁   I mean Sheetz is still not better than Wawa, but it is here, and Sheetz is still a solid gas station. 

Just down the street from Insomnia is D.P. Dough’s. This place is a great spot to grab  late night calzones, breadsticks, or wings. Open until 2am, I doubt you’ll ever have a complaint about their hours. 

There are so many downtown food options here in State College that this blog doesn’t really even scratch the surface of State College cuisine. Know that when you choose Penn State, you are making the right choice for yourself, and your taste buds!

There’s a reason why the Penn State meteorology program is elite. If you can predict the weather here in Happy Valley, you’ll have no problem in Southern California where it’s always 70 and sunny or Seattle where everyday presents a constant drizzle. 

The weather here, it just doesn’t make sense. Last Friday it was 60 and sunny, then it went on to snow the last three days over the weekend, and now, this Thursday it’s going to be 70 and sunny again. 

Coming to state college, you’ve got to be prepared for all weather conditions. The first 2 weeks after we arrive in the fall- it is just HOT. You’d think in PA the heat wouldn’t be that overwhelming, especially if you are from the South or somewhere hotter, but the high humidity and unrenovated dorms without air conditioning all add up to you absolutely melting. 

After the heat dies down a bit, you are most certainly still not out of the woods yet. Here at University Park, it rains – A LOT. I remember last semester every Thursday (I remember because it was the day I had to walk to Hammond for EDesign twice) it rained. It rained for 5 or 6 Thursdays in a row at one point. I would always get back from Hammond and immediately try to save my notebooks and computer from my wet backpack. –Life hack: If you put all the notebooks in your backpack in a plastic bag, it usually keeps them pretty dry. Alternatively, you can rock the poncho over your backpack. Nobody will judge you for this move – they’d only be jealous that they hadn’t thought of it themselves.

All in all, the weather during the fall semester is pretty nice. You can be outside comfortably the whole semester especially if you don’t mind a little heat in the beginning or a torrential downpour here and there. However, the spring semester is a different story.

There’s a reason why most people choose to study abroad in the spring semester instead of the fall (yeah football is probably part of that). But when you get back to campus in January, the high is below freezing, and you gotta get used to it because warmer temperatures aren’t coming until the end of March if you’re lucky. 

I’d say if you know you’re coming to a BIG 10 school, a quality winter jacket is worth the investment because you’ll be wearing it everyday for at least three months while you’re here. Same thing with a pair of boots. Go for functionality over style. 

The best part about the snow is there will be so many chances to have fun in the winter weather with all of your friends. Some highlights: Snow football on the old main lawn, Trash bag sledding down the hill behind the baseball field, and Moving cart carnage behind the HUB. Don’t forget about the impromptu snowball when you see your friend walking to class. The weather is a lot more enjoyable as long as you’re having fun with it!

 If you have never shared a room with a sibling while growing up, a roommate during your first semester of college will be a whole new experience. All of the sudden, you lose control over when you turn the lights in the room on and off, what type of music you play, and how clean or messy you like your room. 

Across the student population, most students have very different roommate experiences. I think some students show up to their dorm the first day like Mike Wasowski in Monsters University, “Ok, here we go. Your lifelong best friend is right behind this door.” [enter Randy Boggs the scaring major] This mindset might be expecting a bit much… especially if you were matched up randomly. 

I would definitely avoid showing up the first day expecting to have a hard time with your roommate because if you think you aren’t going to like your roommate when you get there, you probably still won’t a few weeks into the semester. 

I would personally advocate for being friendly with your roommate, but also not expecting to be total BFF’s. An interesting dynamic that I know a few of my friends have developed with their roommates is what I call the “Functional roommate agreement” In this scenario neither of the roommates are really friends with each other, but they get along well being roommates together because both respect each other’s space. It’s not hard to be this type of roommate, you just leave the light off when your roommate is sleeping and avoid being too noisy when they are in the room so they can sleep, do work, or watch YouTube and TikTok with their headphones- really whatever. 

One philosophy I’ve taken on being a roommate is if I take the trash out more than him, he can never be upset at me for not pulling my own weight. Something I wish my roommate and I did more was get a vacuum from the commons desk to clean our rug, but I have been too lazy to drag a vacuum from the commons and back.

Personally, I’m not really friends with my roommate, but we get along great, and I feel like we have a very good roommate relationship. In some cases, it is better to not be great friends with your roommate because then the dorm can actually be a study area where you can get work done. 

If you don’t like your roommate, Penn State always offers a fishbowl at the beginning of the year where you can switch your roommate and living location if you don’t like where you’re at. I do feel like living with a roommate is part of the college experience, and if I were to do it again, I would not change a thing!

Perhaps you’ve played a sport throughout high school and you would like to continue playing the sport at a level more competitive than IM, but without the full commitment of a varsity sport. Well club sports at Penn State have a lot of options with commitment and competition levels varying depending on what team you are considering joining.

Here at Penn State we have everything from Club Archery to club Cricket to club Quidditch, and even Bass Fishing. The complete list of Penn State’s club sports can be found using this link. Now although I don’t know much about most of the club sports at Penn State, I do know people  that are on the club Bowling, Crew, Croquet, Equestrian, and Ultimate teams. I am also on the Club Cross Country team myself. 

Depending on which team you want to join, there may or may not be a tryout to join the team, and each team’s attendance requirements vary. For Club Cross Country, there is no tryout. Everyone can join the team and show up as often or as little as they want. By contrast, if you join the crew team, they have 6am lifts at the White Building, and have to head to Bald Eagle State Park to practice their skills in the morning before all of their classes. Most teams have some sort of cost associated with joining the team. I think for the Club Cross Country team it was about $70 to join for the year. This cost goes to paying for transportation to events, covers the cost of races (or matches) and also pays for lodging for overnight stays. 

Since cross country is a fall sport, most of our events happen during the fall semester. I think we had about 5 races that occurred during the “regular season” and then we had regionals and nationals after that. NIRCA (the running association that PSU Club XC is a part of) held their nationals in Indiana this year. We took a charter bus to a hotel the night before the race and the bus took us to the course the next day. Nationals was an all day event because there were so many heats of runners that had to compete. They gave out both team and individual awards at the end of the day, and then we hopped back on the bus to make the trip home. 

The Club Cross Country team is also a huge organization for THON. Throughout the year the team does various activities in order to raise money for THON. During one of the most popular fundraisers, Miles for Smiles, the PSU Club XC team takes shifts on a treadmill that they run on for 46 hours straight (the same length of time as THON). 

Club sports are generally pretty close knit teams, and they are a great way to find friends who have the same interests as you. I’m glad I joined the Club Cross Country team and plan on running with them the rest of my 4 years here in State College.

Coming to Penn State you’re probably thinking about all of the materials you will need. What type of computer should I get (not a mac), what kind of backpack do I want, how many pencils do students even use anymore? This particular blog will not be the place to find that information. In this blog I’m going to discuss what you haven’t thought about, what apps you will need. 

First off, and perhaps the most useful app you will use on the first week is Penn State Go. Penn State Go is the one stop shop for everything you will need related to Penn State. It has Lion-path, Canvas, your email, Athletics information, the Academic Calendar, where the buses are at, and even the dining hall menus for the rest of the week. And let me tell you, you will be using that map on the app so much during that first week of classes to navigate yourself around campus. You won’t look as much like a freshman now as you would’ve in the past for using a map. Before 2010 they’d have seen you with a map and been like, “That’s a Freshman.” Today, they just see a guy walking down the street on the phone and think oh just another social media addict. 

Up next is the Penn State Athletics app. This app is critical for you to access your student tickets to any sporting event. Make sure to put your tickets into your Apple Wallet (or Google wallet) before the day of the game. I promise it will simplify your life to a large degree. The Athletics app can also give you live updates on all of your favorite sports teams.

I know I said PSUGo was the most useful app, but the most important app is definitely Duo. Duo is your key to log into everything. Anytime you log into a Penn State account you will have to use Duo for dual-factor authentication. Not so fun fact: one time I was updating my phone to the new iOS, and I couldn’t do any work for the 40 minutes my phone was updating. Learn from my mistakes: log in before you update. 

Another key app to have is Adobe Scan. It is the number one way to submit any assignments you completed on an actual sheet of paper (opposed to on a computer screen). Adobe scan makes pdf documents out of pictures with your phone camera, and if you have the Canvas App (featured next) you can submit your assignments directly from Adobe scan. Huge time saver.

Finally the last app that is a major help is the Canvas app. It allows you to submit assignments directly from your phone, and it is the best way to receive your grades. However, this download does come with a risk. If you allow notifications, there is a chance nights are ruined by your physics test score popping up on your screen. This drawback can be reduced by not allowing notifications. Despite this one disadvantage, Canvas is still worth a download. 

These are some great apps that will save you time and improve your college experience!