University Park, Pennsylvania is home to Pennsylvania State University and has been my home for the past one and a half years. The university is in a college town and is set in the backdrop of the Nittany Mountains. The PSU (a.k.a – Penn State / Nittany Lions) with its 40,000 plus student body is one of the largest universities in the U.S.A and is quite an experience for a new student; rest assured you will be lost for the first month on campus without a map.
Penn State has numerous resources and opportunities for its students; the aspects of my tenure at Penn State that has most caught my attention are Penn State Academics, Penn State Sports and Penn State Community.
Much of my time at Penn State has been spent in the MBA wing of the Business Building. Rated as one of the best Business School Facilities in the country it boasts reputed research centres in all functional areas in business such as Supply Chain Management, Marketing, Entrepreneurship, but perhaps the coolest aspect of the Business Building is the financial trading room. Walk into it and you will feel like you are in the trading rooms of Wall Street. Students use this facility to actively manage a $ 5 million fund set aside for students and the student managed fund has historically outdone the S&P index.
Penn State University is working on something remarkable on many frontiers. It has one of the largest budgets for research among universities in the country and the excellent academic foundations have recently led to Penn State University being ranked number one by corporate recruiters according to the Wall Street Journal.
The Nittany Lions are one of the most feared and respected collegiate athletic programme in the country; Penn State Football is an experience that is a must for every student on campus. Beaver stadium, home of the Penn State football team seats over 110,000 members. Chants of “We Are Penn State” ring loud from the stadium and can be heard well down the street. The experience is one like no other and much like how cricket brings Indians together, Penn State football brings Penn Staters everywhere, young and old, together in a show of great school spirit.
As much as I have enjoyed Penn State sports and academics, what is most attractive to me about Penn State is the community. When I first came here a PhD student told me that she had elected to stay in the area after graduation because the university and the town were ‘addictive'! After staying here for a year and a half and looking upon graduation coming up very soon, I now see what she meant, the people, the excitement, and always being part of something new and exciting has proven to be very rewarding. My colleagues in the business school and the largest active alumni body have very much added to my experience here, so much so that my Deepavali celebrations have been bigger here at Penn State than my celebrations in India. The University has a strong team that assists prospective students about the courses it offers and facilities for foreign students. Such queries can be sent to ‘smealmba@psu.edu' and more information can be had on www.smeal.psu.edu/mba.
Paari Rajendran
MBA Candidate, Class of 2011
Penn State University- Smeal College of Business
He can be reached on ‘pxr179@smeal.psu.edu'.
