For my last trip to a college campus, I wanted to experience a college atmosphere that may be completely different. After pondering how I could accomplish this for a while, I came up with the idea of visiting a community college instead of a regular university. So for my last stop I spent some time at the Community College of Allegheny County.

The first thing that I noticed about the structure of the campus was that there was only one building. Don't get me wrong, this building was pretty large, but I didn't like how there was no separation at all. CCAC just reminded me of a high school. I ended up being able to go inside of the building and the cafeteria was in the basement, which I found odd. It was like a dungeon down there and it reminded me of a prison cafeteria. Directly next to this was the computer lab which only housed approximately 20 computers. After leaving the dungeon, I made my way upstairs and each floor pretty much consisted of classrooms that again reminded me of a high school.

While exploring the building, I noticed that there was not a good vibe. The atmosphere was dull and everyone looked miserable. I would assume that is because most students only go to CCAC for two semesters to save money and then transfer to a lager school. I ended up talking to a girl named Ashley. Like I thought, Ashley was only at CCAC because her parents were making her pay for her entire college tuition and she wanted to save some cash. She explained to me that the classes at CCAC were really easy and a lot of the teachers seemed under-qualified to teach college level courses. I asked her if everyone was as miserable as they seemed and she said that she didn't believe so. She thought that most people had the same attitude as she did, which was to take it as it is for now and look forward to a new school.

It was when I was approaching my car to leave that I decided to take one final look at CCAC. I was once again surprised at how much this institution resembled a high school. I then thought to myself that UPJ may not be the greatest school on earth, but there are many places that are worse off than it. At this point I felt grateful that I was a mountain cat and was excited to get back to my school because when it comes to CCAC, if I want to go back to high school I can just look through an old year book.

Ever since I decided to write a blog about spending time at other colleges, there is one college that I have been waiting for in particular. On a sunny Sunday afternoon, I spent some time at the University of Pittsburgh located in downtown Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I was excited for this trip because I am from Pittsburgh and I have a great sense of pride for the city. Although I have been to the campus several times in the past, I tried to analyze my experience objectively.

Surrounded by the beautiful city, Pitt has streets that seem to be alive. Down one of the main roads, you will find great places to eat, like "the original hot dog shop." Past all of the eateries, is the academic and dormitory buildings. To be honest, most of the buildings look like what you would expect a college in an urban area to look like. Some are close together and some are far apart, but Pitt has a building that is what I believe to be the most amazing structure on any college campus in the United States,the cathedral of learning. This monster looks like it could fit in with the other skyscrapers on the other side of the city. The inside is as beautiful as the outside is. The main lobby is enormous which looks like an old church. If I was to describe the cathedral in one word, it would be breathtaking.

After seeing some of the buildings, I decided to do what I did at the other schools I visited and that was to try to have a conversation with a student. In one of the courtyards I talked to a student named Ben. Ben was currently in the University's law school and he explained how difficult it was. He went onto explain that besides sometimes having hard classes, Pitt's atmosphere was great. For instance, Pitt has various great concerts throughout the year. Ironically, the band that I paid 30 dollars to see in Bloomsburg played a show at Pitt a couple of days later that was free. That was because the university covered the entire cost of bringing the band to campus.

After finishing my conversation with Ben, I walked back through the streets to my car. I was reminded of how beautiful the cathedral of learning is and that the city is very much alive. Although I know I am partial, I know that the University of Pittsburgh would be a great place to go to school. I am actually planning on applying to graduate school at Pitt and if I get in, not only will I receive a great education, but maybe I will save 30 bucks on a concert here and there.

For my third trip on my college adventure, I decided to drive up to Indiana, Pennsylvania and visit the Indiana University of Pennsylvania. I was excited for this trip because I have always heard how IUP is such a great time and I never have been there. So after about forty-five minutes of being on the road, I pull onto campus.

One of the main things that I enjoyed about IUP was the surrounding area. What surrounded the college was a small town with streets that were overwhelmed by trees and little shops and places to eat. In a sense, the scene reminded me of state college, only it was a lot smaller. I made my way to campus and found pretty much what I found at every other college, nice buildings, green grass, and a lot of busy people. One thing that struck my attention is that a lot of the campus buildings seemed to be connected, or at least close in proximity.

At this point I was disappointed, I had found nothing new from any of the other colleges that I have visited and I was already there for quite some time. I knew that it was now time for me to explore the atmosphere of IUP. Then, an idea hit me. There is an IUP chapter of the fraternity I belong to, Sigma Tau Gamma, so I thought I would go check it out. If anything, the "frat guys" would have something interesting for me.

I use the term "frat guys" as a joke because everyone has a label for people who belong to fraternities and I can tell you that people who are in UPJ fraternities are not "frat guys". I always pictured fraternities to be like the movie Animal House and at Pitt-Johnstown it is nothing close to that. With that said, the local Sig Tau chapter at IUP was more like what I originally imagined a fraternity might be like.

I pulled up to the off campus house and proved to the brothers that were in the front yard that I was a member. Each of them had an alcoholic beverage in there hand and were watching people wrestle in the yard. I started talking to some of the brothers and I found out that they pretty much do stuff like this on a nightly basis. After finding this out, I asked them how they got any work done. One of them replied laughing, "It's IUP," which gave me possible insight into the how difficult the academics are.

After spending some time at the house, I was walking back to my car thinking that I may have had a better college experience had I gone to a school like the Indiana University of Pennsylvania. It was almost at this exact moment that a couple of kids on a porch started yelling profanities at me. I was dumb-founded until I realized I was wearing Sig Tau letters and these kids were from a rival fraternity. At this point, I came to the conclusion that maybe UPJ Greek life, where everyone is friends and RA's watch over parities, isn't the worst thing in the world.

Once again, I found it time for me to depart from campus. So I walked away from all of the fraternities and headed to my car. As I walked through the small town I thought to myself that Indiana might be a nice place to live. As for the school, if the academics are easy and the parties are fun, their isn't much more you can ask for as a twenty year old.

One day, I was driving home from my girlfriends house and was distressed that I may never see normal civilization again. I say this because she lives in a place called Danville, Pennsylvania, which an extremely small town in central PA. It was not until I was on 99 South that I got a preview of what I considered normal, being a city-boy from Pittsburgh.

I was on the road and all of a sudden on the horizon an enormous object appeared out of no where. At first it was a mystery to me, but then I realized that I was approaching State College and that object was Beaver Stadium on the campus of the Pennsylvania State University. I originally was not planning on stopping on campus, but since I decided that I would blog about the atmosphere of colleges, I clicked on my turn-signal and took the exit.

I had never been to Penn State and the first thing that I noticed was the size of the campus. No, I should rephrase that, the size of the "civilization". When I walked around, after getting lost several times, I started to get a sense of what going to a large school might be like. The buildings were all different shapes and sizes and quite beautiful. I feel like every building had its own unique look, but still maintained a certain style of the campus. It was a beautiful day, and I enjoyed taking the required long walk from one side of campus to the other.

I got to talking with a Penn State student named Sarah and she seemed really friendly. She told me that the classes at PSU may be difficult, but in the end the experience at the college was definitely worth the difficulties. One final thing that I would like to note about the Penn State is that I got a good sense of school spirit. Everywhere I looked there was Blue and White. This was probably one of the biggest things that I envied about the school compared to UPJ. I mean I don't think anyone really knows what a "mountain cat" actually is.

Blooming Bloomsburg University

One afternoon in early April, I got to experiernce the central Pennsylvania college life. While waiting for a "Jack's Mannequin" concert to begin, I spent the afternoon exploring Bloomsburg University. After having a famous "burrito" at the burrito shop in town, I wandered up to campus. Contrary to my prior belief, the Bloomsburg campus is a lot bigger than what I imagined. The campus is big enough that it has to be split up into two parts (upper and lower).

As I made my first approach towards "lower" campus I found myself driving on a main road that consisted of many little outlet stores and places to eat. At the end of the road was an enormous building which to me resembled an old historic that may have been found in a place like Philadelphia or Washington D.C. The body of the building was made up of red bricks and the top of it was an oval that was painted gold. At this point, I wasn't sure if I found a classroom building or the house of the great and powerful Oz. I don't know, maybe I was traveling on a yellow brick road. As it turns out, it was just one of the university buildings on campus. That is when I first realized how beautiful the architecture on this campus was. At this point, I headed up to "Greek Row". I was now overwhelmed by houses that looked like they might be a drug haven with letters of the Greek alphabet painted on the side. Being that I am in a fraternity at Pitt-Johnstown that has its house on-campus, I was always curious of what off campus Greek life would be like. After seeing these houses, I would take having to deal with an RA any day. Unfortunately, my fraternity did not have a local chapter at Bloomsburg University so I was not able to see inside one of the houses.

Before deciding to spend an afternoon at Bloomsburg, I decided that although I wanted to see what the campus looked like visually, I thought it was as equally important to get a sense of what the atmosphere was like. To try to accomplish this, I decided to walk up to a random person, ask for directions, and then try to strike up a conversation. I met a man named James who was attending that same concert that I was later that night. James and I talked about music, school, and everyday life. After talking for over twenty minutes, I realized that Bloomsburg at least had one friendly student.

After my new friend and I said our goodbyes, I continued to explore the campus and was amazed at how like the first academic building I saw, the campus architecture was amazing. I even found myself wondering if I took a wrong turn and ended up at an ivy league school like Penn or Yale. Being that I already spent a couple of hours on campus, I decided that it was time to leave. On the drive home I reflected on my experience and came to the conclusion that Bloomsburg University would not be a bad place to spend four years as an undergraduate.