The Happiest Place on Earth

Introduction
PSU has incredible academic programs and allows you to take classes in just about everything. State College is a college town with everything you need in walking distance. There are 500+ clubs and amazing sports. People are friendly - at Penn State you are family. While it's easy to be "just a number" here it is equally as easy to stand out from the crowd. I wouldn't tell any student not to apply. However, if you are looking for small classes and a lot of individual attention, attend a branch campus for the first 2 years to get your general education classes out of the way, then come on up to Main.

Campus Life and Social Life
PSU has a huge number of students, but it's really as small as you make it. Join a club, sit next to different people in class - soon you will run into a ton of people you know on campus. Football weekends are the more exciting than I ever imagined, and I dont even like football. Weekends in general are packed with activity from frat parties every block to plays and concerts. Academics
At Main Campus the workload can be rough especially for engineering, math, science students. The College of Liberal Arts is great with an incredible communications program and awesome professors. For most majors there is a lot of career assistance - job fairs, resume workshops, etc. The branch campuses are a great place for some students to start - especially those that want smaller classes. The general ed classes at PSU can get huge and it's not great for students that want a lot of individual attention from professors. Professors are great - most are willing to help, available by email, and truly invested in seeing their students excel. Owed to Penn State's prestige, there are some profs that do their own research and seem self-involved but in my experience, everyone was fantastic.

Student Body
The students are great. There is a huge sense of pride at school which stays with you after graduation. People are friendly and I found that most worked hard, but played hard too.

In Closing...
As a graduate I can attest to the weight that a Penn State degree holds. I had a job before graduation and when I decided to relocate, the Penn State alumni network was amazing. Penn Staters love to help out Penn Staters - a good thing given that we are huge in number and live all over the world.