Indiana Information

[pinetar10]

i'm not into partying, but if thats what you like there are lots of parties around campus, especially on thursday, friday and saturday nights, though you can find parties any night of the week if thats your thing.
basically, indiana is a nice small town, with most things you would need. you're not going to find lots of fancy restaurants or good shopping that many like. There's low crime and rarely violent crime. Philadelphia Street (main street) is about a half mile from campus, and that is where all the bars are. There's about 4 to 5 bars that many college students frequent.
Although located right beside each other, the town of indiana and the campus of iup are two completely different things. Campus is where all the college kids are and is where the partying takes place.
outside of campus is the town of indiana, and its more quiet with a high percentage of older, retired people.
many college kids that I have known have lived all 4 to 5 years of college and didn't know where anything was in town or around town as they rarely left campus.
I think the main drawback is the weather, as most of the area gets several snow storms each winter and its usually in the 30's from december to february, and you get the occasional snow storm in march as well.

[CHIP72]

Don't know if the original poster still is checking the city-data forums or not, but I can provide some insights. I went to grad school at IUP in the late 1990's, and though I hated living in western PA, I thought Indiana was one of the nicest towns in western PA. The university is the dominant employer in the town, and gives Indiana a different feel than the surrounding area; much of Indiana County and western PA in general still relies more heavily on blue collar-type jobs and subsequently has been struggling for years. The downtown area of the town, while not large (as to be expected for a town with 15,000 people), is/was pretty nice IMO with a few shops, restaurants, a library, etc; it is centered on Philadelphia Street between 6th and 7th Streets. This downtown area is only about 1/2 mile from the north end of campus, within easy walking distance. (If you like deli sandwiches, be sure to check out the 9th Street Deli, at 9th and Philadelphia Streets - they have very good sandwiches.) As was noted previously, there is some commercial development stretching 2-3 miles southwest of the town along PA 286, including the Indiana Mall and a couple other shopping centers including one with a Super Wal-Mart (still the largest Wal-Mart I have ever been in). There is also some commercial development along Oakland Avenue (PA 286) and Wayne Avenue (Business US 119) either across the street or within 1 block of the campus. There is a McDonald's, a Sheetz (an excellent convenience store that sells made-to-order subs), and most importantly a Giant Eagle (grocery store) within easy walking distance of campus (or at least the eastern side of the campus). (If you live off-campus within the town, there is also a Sheetz a little further from the campus at 4th and Philadelphia Streets.) With the school, I know many residential buildings have been or are in the process of being replaced with brand-new buildings. The campus is fairly nice; one highlight is the Oak Grove in the center of campus, and though the campus is fairly dense, there are some other open areas too. I wasn't a party person when I was at IUP (or at any point in my life), but I know even in the late 1990's it was considered a good party school. FWIW, I thought there were a high percentage of really good looking girls at IUP when I was there. Finally, if you don't have a car while on campus, you can still get out to those places on PA 286 I mentioned earlier via the IndiGo (aka ICTA) buses; I think they changed their route structure a bit since I was at IUP, but I'm pretty sure there is still a main route that runs right through the middle of campus and goes out to the Indiana Mall and Wal-Mart on an hourly basis every day (though service time is limited on Sundays). Students can ride free by showing their ID card.

In addition to all of the above, I want to mention that Indiana is pretty isolated. Indiana is literally the largest town for 30 miles in any direction; the next-largest towns are Johnstown to the southeast and Greensburg to the south-southwest. Pittsburgh is about 75-90 minutes away to the southwest (you can use either US 119/US 22 or PA 286 to get there). To the north, I don't think there's a town larger than Indiana for over 100 miles; people from places like Punxsutawney (yes, the Groundhog Day town; it is about 30 miles north of Indiana) and DuBois come to Indiana for their bigger-time shopping. (Yikes.) Within Indiana County, there are no other towns even remotely close in size to Indiana; the next largest town is Blairsville (population about 3500) about 15 miles south. In fact, the only other towns besides Indiana and Blairsville that have even 1000 people are Homer City (6 miles south) and Clymer (10 miles northeast), both of which are between 1000 and 2000 people. In other words, if you want to go somewhere outside Indiana for entertainment, you pretty much have to drive to Pittsburgh, Greensburg (which doesn't have much more than Indiana), Johnstown (ditto), Altoona (ditto, though they do have a minor league baseball team), or State College (which is about 90 miles away).

EDIT: I forgot to mention the weather in Indiana tends to be a little cooler and more overcast than much of western PA; Indiana is at 1300 feet in elevation but is west of the highest ridges in the Appalachian Mountains, and is also downwind from Lake Erie when there's a northwest wind. As a consequence, Indiana frequently gets lake effect snow in the winter. Now the lake effect snow isn't the heavy snow you hear about on the Weather Channel; Indiana is too far from Lake Erie to get that. However, it does have frequent snow showers that will dump a couple inches of snow on the town every few days/week or so. The same climatological feature also tends to make Indiana more cloudy than most places (though it really isn't dreary or anything like that).