Being a college student is full of expenses, unrelated to paying for the actual classes. Expenses like our rent, bus passes, nights out, off campus meals, groceries, transportation to and from home, clothes, laundry, expensive textbooks, the list goes on. Some of us barely make enough to pay for the bare minimum.
Fortunately there are resources on campus that are dedicated to making our academic career a little easier. The unfortunate aspect is that no university wants to give stuff out for free, so you won’t know about some of these facilities. However, please use this article from Penn State and this piece as a reference to suck your university’s resources dry.
PSU Recreation
PSU Recreation is an app that details some of the activities and classes that Penn State has to offer in terms of health and wellness. The app includes fun sports and workouts such as cycling, swimming, kickboxing, and H.I.I.T. If students wish to slow it down, they can also get involved in classes dedicated to restorative yoga practices. Health and wellness opportunities should be accessible to students for proper stress management and general maintenance.
Adobe Creative Cloud
Penn State students have access to industry-level graphic design software like Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Spark and many different creative Adobe properties. If you are an artist, designer, writer, or any type of creative, the Adobe Creative Cloud is an amazing resource.
You can work on storytelling and data analysis in games, mobile app designs, web content, digital drawings and so many more creative outlets. Adobe is great for an aspiring entrepreneur, developing artists, and even physician and STEM research students.
3D Printing
Known as the Maker Commons, the 3D printing lab in Paterno Library is a great shop to experiment with the ever-growing technology of 3D printing. 3D printing is being used in medical fields, creative fields, culinary fields, aerospace fields, construction fields, architecture fields and more.
Being able to work with this technology will be a great skill to take into a professional world being changed by 3D printing technology.
PSU Lyft Rides
The Penn State Ride Smart program by Lyft provides 8 $10-per-ride credits each month to all Penn State Students to provide safe rides back to their home from downtown. These rides are valid on typical party days: Thursday, Friday and Saturday from 2-7 a.m.
The program comes around at a time of increased timely warnings and more outside activity post quarantine as a way to protect students and provide them a safe way home on late nights.
Student Readership Program
Professors will never stop bragging about this student feature. Have you ever been assigned a New York Times article, but it was blocked behind a paywall?
Well, Penn State students have access to the Student Readership Program, which gives us free access to multiple reputable publications. From the Wall Street Journal to the Centre Daily Times, we get access to professional journalism on a regional and national level.
As students, this is a great resource, especially when it comes to research.
SPA Free Concerts
To be unaware of SPA is a sign you might be living under a rock. The Student Programming Association, or SPA, is responsible for bringing in the hottest artists performing on the campus.
From Lil Yachty to Doja Cat, SPA is responsible for bringing excitement to PSU campus, many times for free. With many concerts free to students, who wouldn’t want to participate in such fun activities like these?
Microsoft Defender Advanced Threat Protection (ATP)
Every Penn State student has access to the Microsoft OfficeSuite, from Outlook email to Microsoft Excel. Also included in the package is a free antivirus program that all students have access to.
As technology becomes a bigger factor in accessing education, students should be wary of the types of malware that can affect their laptops. From ransomware to phishing, all manner of data theft and CPU destruction can happen. A reliable anti-virus is essential as not to put school work on hold.
Please feel free to visit the provided websites with more information on how to utilize these resources. Use these to your hearts content. Penn State owes its students that much.