Club Sports

Everyone has a tough time making friends freshman year, and I was no exception to this rule.  I didn't make friends with the people on my floor because they were all older than me.  I wasn't the type of girl to rush a sorority.  I just felt left out and like I didn't have any friends.  This is where club frisbee and the club sports program came in.

There are so many club sports that you can join!  You can find them all at: sites.psu.edu/clubsports

Here are my reasons for joining a club sport:

1. It's good exercise. Going to the gym by myself was hard.  It was difficult to motivate myself to go to the gym when I always had so much homework.  Joining frisbee forced me to go workout at a specific time regardless of how much homework I had.  This drastically improved my grades. 

2. There is a sense of community.  Like I said, making friends freshman year was difficult for me because I got caught up in homework.  Club frisbee gave me my core group of friends.  Nothing bonds you better than sweating together, and any club sport will do this for you.

3. Leadership roles.  A lot of club sports aren't too big once you start going to every practice.  For this reason, it is very easy to obtain a leadership role, as there are less people competing for them.  I was elected VP of Frisbee after being on the team for only 8 months!  This also means that you have a better chance of dancing in THON!

4. THON.  A lot of club sports get involved in THON.  This is one of Penn States greatest achievements in my mind.  Nowhere else in the world will you see a 46 hour party for pediatric cancer patients.  It's the most wonderful thing in the world, and many club sports are involved.

5. Competition.  Like most engineers at Penn State, I am very competitive; you have to be in order to get those good grades that you want.  Sometimes, it's not good to compete in the classroom.  Penn State's club sports program is highly competitive, with over 50 of our clubs winning national titles.  If you need a little heathy competition, this is the place to go.

"But what if I want to get involved, but I'm not good enough at any sport." Don't worry! A lot of lesser known clubs are still highly competitive and don't make cuts. Club frisbee and club quidditch are two of these clubs. Keep an open mind!

Katie Farnum is a senior majoring in Mechanical Engineering, and is a Mentor for WEPO 2015!

Picking Your Major. AHH!

“Do I even want to be an engineer?  Business seems like more fun.”

“Math is literally killing me.”

“I hate ALEKS.”

 “If I have to retake physics, I will punch a wall.” 

These are all common phrases heard from every freshman in engineering. More specifically, I have said every single one of these phrases multiple times. I have called my parents crying at 11:30 pm because my physics homework was due soon and I couldn’t figure it out. I had convinced myself that I was going to switch out of engineering at one point because Physics 211 and I didn’t get along very well.

And now look at me. I’m still here in mechanical engineering 2 years later.  I’ve interned with GE for two summers. I made it through all of those exams and weed out classes. If I can do, I know you can too.

Picking your major is the easy part once you’re here. You’re already in engineering! Any major you pick will be a good one, and you can do virtually anything with an engineering degree once you get it. There are a bunch of different types of engineering that you have to choose from after three semesters. Three semesters gives you enough time to realize that maybe Civil Engineering isn’t for you and you want to do more Aerospace Engineering. It gives you time to figure out what you want and don’t want.

I changed my major freshman year. I was originally Aerospace until the early entrance to major forms came out (asking if you wanted to formally declare your major early). I went absolutely nuts when I read the email. What if I don’t want to be an Aerospace Engineer for the rest of my life? What if I get tired of that stuff when I’m 35? I’ll just have to suffer through the next 30 years. Oh my god. Oh my god. I went online and changed my major online in 30 seconds and that was it. 

If you do decide that you don’t like your major, changing your preferences on eLion takes around 1 minute to switch, which is a blessing and a curse.  It’s easy to change your mind but don’t change your mind TOO much. Then you’ll just confuse yourself!

Take a deep breath. You can do it! Pick something that you like. Pick a major that you can see yourself doing in 20 years. I’m mechanical because I want to build planes and satellites when I’m older, which I can do with mechanical. If you want to build the newest device that saves people from cancer, maybe biomedical engineering.  If you want to do more business with your engineering and problem solving, industrial engineering is for you.There is a major for everyone. You can do it!

Katie Farnum is a junior in Mechanical Engineering, and she is a Mentor for WEPO '14!