A year in review with Penn State’s freshmen
The commons, freshman year: a familiar feeling to most Penn State students but one that’s only temporary.
Each fall, a new set of more than 4000 students are packed away in the 16 brick and steel towers that make up East Halls. And each spring nearly all of them leave for a new home outside of their original Penn State port-of-entry.
But in the two semesters in between, some of these thousands of students will make friends, lose friends, love college, hate college, learn new ideas and disregard old ones. But none of them will come out of their freshman year unchanged.
The beating heart of the East Halls animal is the commons, where the faces of freshman year become more familiar and recognizable every day as they smile and frown on by.
In the vast complex, with its doors open all hours of the day and night, students eat, students learn, students adapt, and eventually — students leave.
Old Faces, New Ones Too
Eating out of characteristic styrofoam boxes, flipping between tabs on laptops and talking about what’s to come, there’s almost always a freshman in the Findlay Commons lounge.
Nicole Evans and Matthew Pete sat with Angelica Tripodianos in the center of the commons socializing. Evans (freshman-nursing) and Pete (freshman-engineering) are old friends from high school, they said, both natives of Northern Virginia.
Tripodianos, a native of upstate New York, became friends with Evans through Penn State’s Army ROTC program, but it was her first time meeting Pete, she said.
All of the members of the group expressed their amazement at the speed of each semester, but they all had come to adapt to a new lifestyle, they said.
Pete said he immediately jumped into Penn State’s extracurriculars, joining engineering clubs and participating in intramural sports, saying he “enjoyed the things Penn State has to offer.”
He said he has enjoyed the new college lifestyle presented to him this year, though he said he had never lived on his own for an extended period prior.
He described his first months of college as a “welcome challenge,” saying he felt like he was entering the “next step of adulthood.”
Tripodianos (freshman-biobehavioral health) said she too had managed to learn the lifestyle of a freshman, though it was not without its hardships.
“When I had the first hard friendship battle or [difficulties] with school, I was like, ‘I wish I had my mom right now,’ and she could give me a hug, and it’d be ok,” Tripodianos said. “But she wasn’t [here].”
She said she will remember football games and high-fiving Saquon Barkley on the day of Penn State’s white-out game. The others, too, said they would remember their first games at Beaver Stadium.
Evans said she had become so well adapted to living at college that Penn State began to replace Virginia as her home, at least mentally.
“When you’re at your house, it’s more comfortable there, but now when I go home and come back to Penn State, it almost feels like this is home and it’s a vacation to go back to my house,” Evans said.
Next year, she said she plans to live off campus, as do the others, though they’ll all miss the camaraderie and convenience of East Halls.
Familiar with his friend from pre-Penn State times, Pete said he had watched Evans grow as a person and in her ROTC program as the year progressed, calling himself “a supportive friend.”
“She’s definitely doing really well,” he said. “And I’m proud of her.”
First semester from further afield
As Evans, Pete and Tripodianos made the best of their nights in the lounge, two friends walked with equal strides and half-drank Gatorades in-hand to a nearby table.
Fawaz Al Sabehi and Azzan Al Shanfari are not natives of East Halls, nor are they natives of the United States. But like the three friends nearby, their semester will soon come to an end.
The two high school friends from Muscat, Oman, however, will not shed their freshman status upon completion of finals in the first week of May.
Due to remaining coronavirus restrictions and obligatory government exams, the two friends weren’t able to make it to Penn State until the start of the spring semester.
Living abroad isn’t a new experience for Al Sabehi (freshman-division of undergraduate studies), though. He said he had spent several months in the city of Bath, England as a boarding student before.
There, unlike here, he said he was more focused on the experience of living abroad rather than concentrating on school. But time management and school work have taken precedence at Penn State, he said.
Arriving late as sponsored students, the two were relegated to off-campus housing at The Heights at State College, northwest of campus. The two must take a bus to arrive on campus, with Findlay Commons sitting more than three miles from their door.
For Al Shanfari (freshman-division of undergraduate studies) this has somewhat limited his experience in his first semester on campus.
“One problem is we’re stuck in our own circle. We don’t expand our circle,” Al Shanfari said. “We didn’t network much with other students just commuting between The Heights and campus.”
Both agreed that their favorite experience in the spring was the first snow in January, which neither of them were familiar with. The dismal weather has gotten a bit tiring since, though, Al Sabehi said.
The two said they intend to major in finance once they are able to register and look forward to experiencing football in the fall as the weather brightens.
“I’m looking forward to the fall because I’ve heard the weather is beautiful,” Al Sabehi said. “So far, [the weather of] this semester has been horrific.”
Differing Opinions, Same Result
Jamie Berrin sat in the far corner of the commons fresh off a phone call with her father, the third one of that day, she said.
Far from her natural habitat, Berrin (freshman-division of undergraduate studies) grew up on the Upper West Side of New York City. But a long family tradition of Penn Staters drew her to State College, she said.
Berrin said her mother, grandfather and cousins are all alumni.
She also came to Penn State to escape the bustle of the Big Apple and attend a school with a greater number of students and activities available.
“I wanted a school with a lot of school spirit and not a city school,” she said. “I wanted the college town and the campus and the walking.”
East Halls has been great to her, she said. Even though it’s a bit far from other locations around campus, she described it as “community oriented,” making it easier to meet people and maintain connections.
More of a concern to Berrin was maintaining connections with family and friends back home while she socializes in Martin Hall, though she said she’s been successful at keeping up.
Her best night at Penn State, she said, was her birthday, when she and her friends went out.
“I feel like the best nights are the ones where you just really go with the flow and don’t have a set plan or are anticipating anything that’s coming,” she said.
Next year, she said she’ll live on her sorority floor in South Halls and intends to major in public relations or advertising.
The New Yorker said more than anything she was looking forward to no longer carrying the burden of “being a freshman.”
On the other hand, Akshata Shastry, another resident of Martin Hall said she didn’t come to Penn State with very big expectations, though she had more fun than she anticipated she would.
Maintaining a connection with her family or feeling homesick hasn’t been much of a concern for her, she said, especially with her sister Annika just over in West Halls.
But Shastry (freshman-biology) said she never really felt at home in East Halls among her freshman peers, saying it “doesn’t match her energy.”
“I don’t think I’m going to miss it,” she said. “I don’t hate it here, though. It’s just not my place.”
The Berwyn, Pennsylvania native said next year she’s looking forward to living in Penn State’s on-campus Nittany Apartments with two of her friends.
Shastry said she too remembers her birthday as a significant night in her freshman experience. She and friends held a “minion-themed” party in the kitchen of her dormitory, which she thinks fondly of.
But regardless of her feelings toward East Halls and unlike Berrin, Shastry said she’ll miss the novelty and life experience of being a freshman in college, something only attainable once.
“I think there’s just a freshness to being a freshman,” she said. “It’s so cute. I’m going to miss it, just being in this silly little dorm.”
