Setup/Prelude to College
One day you have a kid, the next day you’re waking up at 6:30 on a Saturday to bring them to their first college visit. While the time doesn’t actually go that fast, it does go by faster than you think. Where does it all go? When did I get old? How are we going to do this? Lots of questions a lot of parents ask themselves, and they all manage to get through it. Just like we’ll get through it.
We have 2 here, Julia & Zac, both high school juniors, step-siblings, just a month apart in age. When we can, we’ll roll the visits up together. Our first tour will be a combo, 2-in-1, roll & go, as it were.
Early Start
We’re up early, as mentioned above, and out the door by 7:15. The tour is at 1:00 and it takes about 3:20 to get there. But I want to ensure we have some time on campus, and we have time to eat lunch before we get there. I want to make as much of the day as we can, because if you drive in, do a 2-hour tour, then leave, I would wonder if you’re getting the most out of the visit. In my opinion, do it up fully or don’t do it at all.
As we eat breakfast, I find that there’s a men’s volleyball tournament happening later in the afternoon. Details will be worked out but it’s something for us to consider.
The drive is early & quiet, as well as cold. The temps drop below 0 as we hit the north-central PA area. Other than the cold, there’s nothing of note on this drive, which is well & good for us, as an uneventful drive is a good one.
Primanti Brothers
We park in the deck next to the main (HUB) student center and walk down to College Ave. Does every school in America have a College Ave? I think the answer must be yes. Next step of the day – first order of the day I guess – is to get lunch. Since D isn’t here today I opt for gluttony and go for Primanti Brothers, which is an absurd sandwich making delight.
An image of JoePa greets us, like it does in many of the locations here. Despite his shady end-of-career happenings, I think he’s still seen as a legend.
The sandwich is indulgently excellent and it’s a good meal to start this frigid trip with. After the meal, I look around for coffee but find a mediocre espresso at a place called Irving’s, which is popular but more than likely totally average in almost every way. As a student I’m sure it’s great. As an adult, it seems like a middle-of-the-road sustenance factory.
Register/Student Center
We walk to the HUB-Robeson student center to register and we’re assigned group 10. I ask if we can officially register Zac and she says they don’t check that stuff with admissions. Julia’s guidance councilor said she should take an official tour for every college she wants to go to, since some of them factor that in. Not the case here.
The Hub-Robeson Center is named in part after Paul Robeson, who was a Rutgers graduate. Why Penn State chose this name is a mystery but I find it an interesting link. Just an item in the cabinet of curiosities.
We sit in the student center and waste away some time before the tour starts at 1:00.
The Lecture
We sit in the big hall and get the large lecture for half an hour. This now strikes me as being the big next step in life for us, and the kids. It’s really a next chapter for us, and a start of a new book for the kids. Sitting in this hall makes everything more real. Life is evolving, again. I suppose that as a parent, this is always something that happens and it keeps things fresh & changing. It’s exciting, yet also a little sad in some ways.
But as I tell D via text, it will be all sad once we get that tuition bill. Much less excitement then.
The whole process is new to me. 34 years ago when I did this, we didn’t take college tours. The idea was totally foreign. So 34 years later, I get to hear all the stuff I was supposed to learn about in 1989. I also can’t help but think things are so much more put together than they were back in the 90s. At the same time, I feel like Rutgers, and everything New Jersey, is & was more of a “make what you make of it” approach, as opposed to PSU where they seem to foster a lot more growth & community.
I may just be older, but I feel like Rutgers didn’o’t offer much of what I see at PSU in terms of community & support.
The Tour
Sam from Rhode Island gives group 10 our tour. She’s a freshman and speaks well enough. As a 51 year old man, little of what she says is especially riveting. In the end, the kids liked her, both of them commenting specifically that they thought she was really good. That’s all that matters. She was able to answer a few questions we had, so I’ll give her that. She also really loves it here so that’s a great advertisement for the campus.
Most of the tour was this building is this, and that building is that. In reality, anyone could learn to give this tour in short order. Her anecdotes about the school were interesting enough. But nothing to remember well enough to put down in words here.
The tour ended with a look at what a dorm room looks like, which is about what I remember. Zac commented that he would never fit in the bed they provide.
The Creamery
We hit the Creamery for ice cream after the tour. I guess this place is famous, but I found it fine, nothing special. They really didn’t have any flavors out of the ordinary. I mean it was good, good enough, but not Holy Cow level of good.
A Bonus Volleyball Match
So dumb luck. Checking the composite sports schedule and there is a 4-team men’s volleyball tournament this weekend, with PSU, OSU, USC, and UCLA involved. There’s a 4:00 game between OSU and USC that we go check out. Thankfully, there’s no cost to see this, which makes it all the better. For the most part, there are very few people here to watch the game. I get it, as fans don’t really travel that far to see this. The OSU squad has a few fans.
OSU beats them 3-1 in the end. What surprises me is that these guys make the same number of mistakes as the AAU kids, just at a faster pace. The fact they serve out of bounds so much is somewhat surprising.
We jet at 6:00 to grab some dinner.
Pho 11
We pick a Vietnamese place which is 7 minutes from Rec Hall, where the volleyball games are. The ordering process is a kiosk which makes everything a lot easier & faster. We all get some form of pho noodle soup and a plate of wontons to share. The meal comes out quick, and it’s quite tasty. If one of the kids ends up here, I could certainly see coming to this place again.
After dinner we walk to get the car and move it closer, and we get some pics with the Lion Shrine, which is apparently the 2nd most photographed landmark in Pennsylvania.
Bonus Bonus Volleyball Match
Bonus match #2 is PSU-UCLA at 7:00. This one has far more people and the level of play is better for sure. UCLA is ranked #2 and PSU is ranked #4. They serve out of bounds a lot still, but these 2 teams are better. Due to our time constraints, we agree to watch 3 games then leave. After 3, PSU is up 2-1.
The place is pretty packed and loud, and it’s fun to take this in. We hit the road around 8:30 and later learn that PSU would win the next, to take this game 3-1 overall.
Before this match, UCLA had only lost a single set all year, and that was to OSU the night before on the way to beating them 3-1. So this is a pretty big win for PSU.
Drive home
The drive home is late, long, and dark. The last hour is rough but we make it. It’s hard to focus on the drab road after all those hours of the day, but we make it home just fine. As we get off route 78, pretty much every check engine light comes on. Thankfully we make it, and pull in the driveway at 12:15.
Summary
Great day, great full plate to give the kids something good to think about as they start this journey to the next phase of life. I really enjoyed this and the ability to spend 10 hours on campus was really awesome, and gives them a little more insight into things compared to a quick, 2-hour tour.
The hardest part of all of this for me was having to wear shoes for 17 straight hours. That’s just painful these days.
Traveling Normandy 