Penn State?

[Starbaby]

I graduated from Penn State and my son graduated from Arizona State. I spent most of my time in State College many moons ago during my student years, although I have been back recently for football games. I've spent a lot of time in Tempe and on the ASU campus.

Scholastic issues aside, the choice between ASU and PSU really comes down to what your cousin is looking for. They are two entirely different experiences. State College is a four season type town that evolves totally around PSU. I loved the full university immersion, including the relative isolation and the traditional fall, winter, spring experience. Tempe Arizona, on the other hand is in the Phoenix metro area. You do have access to all of the amenities of a major city as well as the campus life. Tempe is in the desert, so the weather is sunny, sunny and sunny. Lots of golf and great restaurants. Dress is mostly casual. Of course summer is brutal with temperatures reaching 120 degrees or more.

Both campuses are beautiful in their own way - you really need to visit both to make any kind of choice. You'll know very quickly which appeals to you.

Good luck.

[Katarina Witt]

I was just getting ready to say the same thing as Starbaby. I was reading through the thread to see if anyone had anything to say about ASU. I have been to both areas, my bro is a Penn State grad; a cousin got her master's at ASU.

Two very different places. Post this on the AZ forum and you will get a very pro-Arizona response. Your cousin needs to decide for herself.

[LiveInPA2]

Originally Posted by ScrantonWilkesBarre

As much as I may love Scranton, the residents here are just so much more narrow-minded than they are in State College that it sickens me . . . . I suppose part of this can be attributed to the fact that State College is a very well-educated city while most in Scranton barely even graduated high school (yet they still whine about the "low-paying jobs").

Mr. Scrantonwilkesbarre, I would thank you VERY MUCH if you would STOP STEREOTYPING EVERYONE IN SCRANTON. For someone who's so "pro-Scranton," you sure are "anti-local-residents."

Perhaps people weren't concerned with the fact you were on a date -- perhaps they were offended by the rude comments you seem to like making regarding the locals, and the fact that you seem to like nothing better than to have all of us escorted to the city limits so people from other parts of the country could move in.

For the record, sir -- I am a native. I still live here, although after reading so many of your degrading comments about the locals, I'm starting to think I'd better get out before you recruit more people with such a BAD, "anti-native" attitude to move here.

I graduated high school -- in the top ten of my class at one of the best schools in the area. I also graduated college after spending four years at Penn State's UP campus. Every single person I know has graduated high school, and about 75% of the people I encounter every day have a college education. None of us are narrow-minded, none of us are "hicks," none of us are asking for a hand-out. None of us hate NEPA -- we stayed here because, 10 or 20 or 30 years ago, we believed that SOMEDAY things would improve. That hasn't happened yet, but we continue to believe, for reasons I don't always understand. And we demand honest representation and fiscal responsibility from our local officals because we see that as the only true way for Scranton to thrive.

If you are so "pro-Scranton," how about NOT projecting such a bad view of the people who live here????? If you hate the people here so much, perhaps YOU should leave. After all, didn't you say on another web site's forum that you were going to move away because there are no career opportunities here?

http://www.urbanplanet.org/forums/lo...php/t6942.html
"Due to a scarcity of career opportunities locally in my chosen profession, I'll likely also have to commute to NYC after college for work to command a salary that is appropriate for my level of education, which just doesn't exist around here."

[SteelCityRising]

First of all, that negative experience my ex-boyfriend and I had in public was in NO way warranted. We were very polite and courteous towards this woman and did nothing to deserve that treatment. This came on the heels of ANOTHER anti-gay experience I had with a classmate who made terroristic threats against me regarding the resurrection of Adolf Hitler to "finish the job he started," and this was ALSO unprovoked on my behalf; he just had a problem with me for no apparent reason other than being the way I am. Growing up and facing such instances DID sour me on the area. I'm sorry, but I don't see very many liberal, progressive, hip people in this area who are welcoming and open-minded towards gays, African-Americans, Arab-Americans, etc. I've worked with the public for the past four years of my life, and I can't even BEGIN to tell you the amount of racial slurs, ethnic jokes, gay-bashing, etc. I've overheard from my own managers at times! If I were a truly vile person I could have had my one manager fired last year for making fun of gay people in front of me with another customer who gleefully joined in the gay-bashing while both totally ignored the fact that I was standing right next to them. I felt very offended that day, but I didn't want to turn things into a newspaper brou-ha-ha if the Times-Leader got whiff of me filing a suit against my company for creating a hostile workplace environment for people of different sexual orientations.

You're blessed to be immersed with people who seem to be rational, lucid, well-educated, and compassionate. On the other hand, I tend to see ALL the folks this area has to offer, and when you come into contact enough times with the aforementioned undesirables, you tend to become very sour. If anything, I'm intolerant of intolerance. I've now come to the point where I take a very gutsy stance during ethnic/racial/gay types of bashing. Sometimes when I overhear someone say something of that nature, I'll wait until they're finished and then say "Oh really? That's weird because my best friend is a(an) (insert offended minority group here)." If you've never come across bigotry or prejudice in our area, then you my friend are VERY fortunate. For those of us who HAVE been exposed to it on a regular basis, it is important to let the TRUTH be told---many residents of our area are intolerant of blacks, gays, Arabs, and other minority groups for no good reason other than having a fear of what they do not know. If I hear words like "darkie", "fruitcake," "towel head", etc. one more time at work, I might just have to get into an argument with a customer and then threaten litigation against the company if they retaliate against me for defending myself and my fellow minority counterparts from such hateful, hurtful vitriol.

Like it or not, our area is 94% or so straight, white, non-Hispanic. As such, if you're in that 6% that doesn't fit those boundaries (which I am), you always worry and feel threatened by such remarks. I'm sorry if I offended you in my reply, but let's just say that "we're even" for all of the times I was hurt by cruel comments from the "perfect" locals and was unable to defend myself through fear of retaliation. If they're permitted to hurt the feelings of us by calling us names, then I'm well within my means to hurt theirs as well by calling them uneducated or rednecks for holding such beliefs.

The sad thing is that I've never received an apology from any party who has offended me in the past. I'm man enough to admit when I'm wrong, and, yes, I was stupid, foolish, and rude to post that reply that stereotyped the locals as being largely narrow-minded and intolerant of gays when you came to their defense to call them open-minded towards gays (which is news to me, but I'll throw you the bone here to spare further argument). I was a bit upset at the time because I had just overheard a customer that day making a hurtful reference about blacks to another customer in regards to a crime in Wilkes-Barre. Sorry. I wish I could be as deaf and blind to these social injustices as people like you; I'd probably be much happier in life if I could just learn the old adage "sticks and stones..."

[Yac]

Get back on topic guys. Solve your issues using PMs.
Yac.

[SteelCityRising]

Originally Posted by Yac

Get back on topic guys. Solve your issues using PMs.
Yac.

Agreed. Wow! You've been doing a lot of mediating lately! LOL! It's great that we're a bunch of adults who act like children and need to be "kept in line." I don't know if it's the weather or what, but it seems like we're all getting to be more emotionally-driven lately with the arguing.

[mach]

I don't have knowledge of PSU but the area is nice. I lived near Altoona PA for 18 years. I think someone talked about spring being nice. not sure about that. It rains rains rains and everything is mud. but I'm on the west side of the mountains. State College is one of about 5 cities in PA that is growing. Not sure why. I think there is one road to get into State College I99 not sure about airports either. It's hard to get semis around in PA because of the hills. Most railroad tracks are ripped out. I am thinking they are trying to make PA a Information hub for defense and other IT jobs and a leader in hospital stuff. . As much as I hate PA I would choose State College over Az any day. If you drive about an 30 mins outside that town your in Gods country. Homes are expensive but depends what you do and what your comparing it to. remember you usually have a basement, not sure what you got in AZ. I guess you will need to spend $180,000-$250,000 minimum for a nice place. not sure what taxes are. lets us know how it goes.

[tiffan28]

the only thing i can say about Penn State (and this is based on the reputation it had in the 80s and 90s) is that it has had some major problems with racism