Pennsylvania State University

If you go to PSU, don't go to a satellite campus, or at least not Abington. The students aren't very nice, there is no parking after 9AM, most students are unintelligent and rude. The campus is beautiful, but the surrounding city of Abington is very white trash, and traffic is horrible. Since it is a commuter school, you just go to class and leave, and social life is kept to in-school friends only. If you need to use a computer, bring a laptop, because since no one has friends they all sit on the computer playing online poker. The professors are outstanding. Very open to talking about things other than their subjects, and will answer irrelevant questions. Since many of the kids have below average intelligence, they ask plenty of irrelevant questions. And since all of your friends go to real colleges, you're stuck at home writing reviews about how much the school sucks. If you are somewhat intelligent, get in the honors program if you can. The only way you'll get a decent study group is if you're in the group, and they're so elitist they won't let most people study with them. Gas also takes up all of your spare money too.

2nd Year Male -- Class 2009

Campus Maintenance: A+, Innovation: F

The study of graduate biology at Penn State was quite an experience. I will give the positives first. There were some very bright and dedicated professors, especially among the more highly regarded academics. However, the treatment of graduate students was a complete scandal. Teaching assistants were placed in a position where they were routinely cooperating with some highly innapropriate behavior. As an example, students would often tell teaching assistants to give them a better grade, or they would do everting in their power to get them in trouble. Because of the manner in which things were run, this was usually effective. If you did not cooperate with behavior along these line, you had a political problem. The teaching assistants were managed by a woman who worked every angle on the teaching assistants (Diane Burpee). She would even order the teaching assistants to tell the professors how great she was. If you didn't play her games, she would do everything possible to have you fired. It was a completely revolting job. I have never seen management as bad as that of the biology department teaching assistants. The graduate students constantly complained to each other about the place, but the lines of communication between them and the professsors were down. Also, though some top bioinformatics people are at Penn State, they are locked in bitter political and ideological disputes with top people at other universities. I have spent considerable time as a student in my life, and I never experienced anything like the Penn State biology department.

Alumnus Male -- Class 2000