cyaluminus

No problem. Do you go to Reed? Or just curious?

I noticed you asked Estelle about PSU. I graduated from PSU with a Bachelors' in Mechanical Engineering in '93. Weird school. Some of the teachers were awesome (80%) a couple of tenured dogs and some grad students in the math dept. who could bore you to tears. Depending on your field it can be a great school. And that's the key: the higher-ups at PSU consider certain programs (Business, Urban Studies) the focus of the school, and those programs rock. Everything else is just "getting in the way" as they see it and the programs thrive or wither based on the dedication of their profs. Hell, the people who run PSU hate engineering and materials science, but alumnus keep giving them millions of dollars for more buildings, so what are they to do? They throw money at the buildings but stiff the ENGR students whenever they need to use resources outside of their out-buildings.

Overall the admin at the school sucks. I swear, I got the distinct impression that I was a bothersome pest getting in the way of their work, not a freakin' CUSTOMER.

And job placement? If you are in one of their favored programs, you are dialed in. If outside, like me, you learn a whole new level of blank look when you ask for help finding an engineering job with a local manufacturer. They point a finger at the ten-year-old card catalogs and tell you good luck. No joke. Well, that was 1993. By now they might be even worse.

So in answer to your query of what PSU is like, I can only answer "what do you intend to study?"

BTW I love your journal. Let's keep in touch.