Penn State Behrend

Penn State Erie, The Behrend College sits on the outskirts of Erie, Pennsylvania. It is a few miles away from Lake Erie and it's beaches. It is a rather beautiful campus with trees and grass everywhere. There is also Wintergreen Gorge that sits behind the campus. This is a great place to go for a nature walk or just a for breath taking views. There are over 3,000 students making it a rather small university.

Does the trees and grass make it perfect for you? Does the small environment make you feel comfortable? This is what I thought when I decided to come to this school. I thought it was amazing. I had the idea that it would be easy to get to the city and be able to go shopping. That transportation would be readily available to get off campus. This thought is not true in the least bit and makes me rather disappointed.

Unless you have a car or know someone with a car, you will have a really hard time getting what you need. There are no convenient stores or shops anywhere in walking distance of the school. You are almost isolated in the middle of houses and land. You must solely rely on what is provided by the school. This is rather hard because there is a limited amount of resources available on campus and those that are here, are rather pricey for the average college student.

There are buses that occasionally come up to the school, but these have limited routes and times for when they come. I have an internship in the middle of Erie beginning in March and I had no way of getting there. I looked at the bus schedule and none of the routes went near where I need to be. Luckily enough, my parents are going to let me bring my car up so that I have a way to get to work. If you were not able to get a car, then you would have to find some other means of transportation which might be very hard.

If you are a picky eater, such as I am, you may have a rough time getting use to the limited food choice. There are only two major resources for food on campus. Those include Brunos and Dobbins. There is also a cafe in the REDC, but it is geared more to quick snacks, sandwiches, and coffee between breaks. The food in Dobbins is almost exactly what you would find in a high school. It does have the advantages of a large salad bar and a wok for different Chinese foods. Other than this though, it is just already made food thawed out for your consumption. It is really difficult not having a stove to make fresh food.

Now, I am not completely bashing the school. It does have a very good educational program. It's business school is ranked rather respectfully. People from all over come to Behrend for it's engineering program. Most of the people are very friendly.

When you consider this school, just make sure you do realize that there are not shops around the school. You must have a car in order to get any supplies you need, unless you want to pay a high price at the bookstore. I didn't realize this when I decided to come here, so I have decided to transfer down to Penn State, University Park. There, there are more opportunities to get what you need. If you don't mind this, then this school is pretty amazing. You get a Penn State degree for a branch campus where you don't have to deal with the largeness of it all. If the campus provided more resources to it's students, I would most definitely stay here.