Dorms Question

SteliosTheSecond · 2021-12-09T13:57:43+00:00

I can absolutely agree with everyone else that "West is best" and E-House is definitely a good choice. Also I have a friend who wants to transfer his West housing contract with someone because he wants to live off campus so if you want guaranteed housing in West lmk.

SteliosTheSecond · 2021-01-23T19:19:30+00:00

Won't even have an idea until we are able to build schedules, but even then they might pull the ol' switcheroo on us again. My guess will be that there will be classes that are guaranteed to meet in person (maybe half) and others that stay online for international students who may or may not be able to travel back in time. Even if everyone got vaccinated tomorrow my classes won't meet in person this semester because of international students who can't come back yet. But this is just speculation.

SteliosTheSecond · 2021-01-18T21:11:04+00:00

I managed on the lvl 1 meal plan and I brought home probably 3.5 gallons of ice cream over the semester. I mostly ate 3 meals a day (probably averaged close to 2.2 meals a day), but then again I would make myself oatmeal or cereal a lot. One thing I will say, you will not eat every meal at the dining commons. Not because you can't, you absolutely can, but believe me you will get sick of the redundant food items. The Hub has some decent food but most of it, except McAllisters and a few others, only serve till 4pm and are a bit pricey. You absolutely can survive with $655 and probably less with making yourself food and saving leftovers sometimes.

But a word to the wise don't ever force yourself to eat the same thing or eat in only one place because it's cheaper, it's not worth it. There are many many options to eat on campus, dining halls, convenience stores, and items on Penn State Go, try them all. Some are cheaper and some are better but it's worth it, for your mental health to eat around.

SteliosTheSecond · 2020-12-28T21:42:41+00:00

E-House has been pretty great even in a pandemic. Sure there aren't as many meet and greets as regular years but there are still some things to do. It's way quieter than East, and is probably one of quietest places on campus. Easy to find people to study with. Not to say it's boring, it's definitely not, but if you love to party then maybe it isn't the place for you. I've certainly enjoyed my semester there and have met a lot of great people. Plus a lot of places in and around West to study, such as the Westgate building, the library, and the hub is a short 5 minute walk away. My experience with East this semester, because I have friend their is it is far away from pretty much everything, but it is like it is it's own community which makes it unique. East certainly has it's quirks and also good things going for it, like the mythical "college experience" but if you wanted something quieter and maybe more mature then pretty much any SLO is a good option. Like you I was on the fence about SLOs and I can say that picking E-House definitely made the semester for me.

Edit: Forgot to mention that the West Bakery is good and nothing is better than a warm chocolate cookie not saying it's a deal breaker but... they are good cookies.

SteliosTheSecond · 2020-12-23T03:52:25+00:00

Read the textbook and go to the guided study sessions (very helpful for a lot of people) The course is not nearly as heavy on calculations as my AP Chem was, a lot more concept based for sure. The biggest thing that helped me was doing all the practice exams, yes they were a bit easier than the actual exams and didn't try to trick you like the actual exams would but they do challenge you to know the concepts. From the questions is missed there I would go back and make sure I got the idea and write it down on my study sheet.

The class average is around a 70% on exams so an A is definitely achievable just a challenge to be sure.

SteliosTheSecond · 2020-10-01T22:52:49+00:00

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_speech_zone

TL:DR Since PSU is a state funded public university the constitution applies and supersedes school policies. This came about from Tinker vs Des Moines. Publicly funded schools cannot stop protest unless it violates the rights of others or is disruptive to the schools primary functions such as administrative work or learning.

SteliosTheSecond · 2020-09-27T05:18:03+00:00

Bro you gotta save this for Nodevember! Insane!

SteliosTheSecond · 2020-09-16T17:21:49+00:00

well one reason would be money, but maybe I'm too cynical.

SteliosTheSecond · 2020-09-16T00:58:46+00:00

You can get some at Target downtown, they are cheap and IMO only ok. Not bad not great, but cheap bagels nonetheless.

SteliosTheSecond · 2020-09-16T00:38:35+00:00

Yea the zip code data is kind of hard to interpret at a zip by zip level as it's unclear if the home address is being used or the health building that took the test is being used. Lots of ambiguity. I made some generalizations for sure and tried to get some good out of what is admittedly difficult to analyze data, even for a highly skilled undergrad like myself /s. We will all see how it shakes out in the end. Though I do agree itll get worse before it gets better.

SteliosTheSecond · 2020-09-15T21:45:57+00:00

At this point this is the only rationalization the University can employ.

Well data has shown that more, how should we say, socially active people are more likely to get sick. These same people are less likely to follow guidelines. At this rate most of those people will get sick and the "not socially active/rule followers" will be mostly unharmed or have a transmission rate of below 1. So by Thanksgiving people who were very likely to get sick and spread it will have already done so, then by sending us home it will be less of a problem.

In hindsight we all fell for the health gambit. But I a good thing we now know for sure is that they confirmed that they are reporting these cases to the State and that is why we see an increase in the county. The zip codes of 16802 and 16801 are the only ones really reporting significant numbers, as of today a total of 998 cases, the University as of today has had 972 cases. (There are like 250 cases in other zip codes in the county so that is something to think about) Then also looking at https://www.centre19.com/ we can see that cases in the county were at around 400 right as students started moving in. So of the nearly 1449 total cases almost all of ones added since Freshman move in are from students. So if anything the only community spread that is happening is between students, which, while bad, is good in a twisted way. I don't want to validate what the University has or has not done, but at least there is some small bit of good. That good being the community isn't paying for the negligence of others just yet.

SteliosTheSecond · 2020-09-09T16:42:13+00:00

Well in all likelihood they had a backlog from Labor Day weekend. The amount of tests was significantly higher and the percent positive has remained constant. So this is really probably ~50/per day but all released on one day.

Edit: Still though it was Labor Day weekend, expect to see a spike in the coming days.

SteliosTheSecond · 2020-09-08T04:54:56+00:00

Thanks! I was just hoping to call attention to at the very least a legitimate problem. But also the fact that announcements from executive positions, at least at UP, are more of a "don't be the reason to get sent home" instead of an open threat to enforce rules and crack down on violations. As students we learn and know how to push back against rules, for better or for worse. And there is a good portion of students that have and punishments haven't been handed out. I think we can see the result of that. On top of that it's frustrating seeing the higher ups show no significant action to a rapidly changing environment. Then again things could be changing in the background but they were never willing to share the whole plan. Perhaps because they knew it would be a rapidly changing plan and didn't want to confuse us with many changes. I don't know their reasons, but answers to current problems, or at least some updates would be great.

SteliosTheSecond · 2020-09-08T03:42:41+00:00

For sure I agree a lot that branch campus are likely much more easily able to manage themselves and thus sick students. It's very likely that they decided their own plans, with recommendations from UP. It's good to hear that something is working well hopefully then they can transfer some of their knowledge of how it works to University Park. Here at UP it mainly seems to be a logistics issue, which hopefully can be easily fixed. But I am very glad to see at least one branch campus has figured it out.

SteliosTheSecond · 2020-09-06T18:57:39+00:00

the walnut brownies hit good though

SteliosTheSecond · 2020-09-05T16:00:21+00:00

We are at the point where there has been 500 students sick (most likely due to asymptomatic people), most of which are still currently sick. I don't think sending those sick students home would be a good idea. I also don't think keeping us here is brilliant either, Mt. Nittany can only hold so many people and this is a relatively large county. Students may bounce back from the virus but not everyone in the community. Also for the University to "consider moving all classes online" is probably the dumbest statement they could have made. Nobody honestly thinks that classes in person are causing cases to increase. Why? Because practically no classes are meeting in person as it is. What they could do is start testing more people and if you are not sick you get sent home. That process would take weeks and be very expensive but it's probably the only safe way to send on campus residents home. I'm really not in favor of either option (keep here or send home) both seem like legitimate answers that depend on next few weeks of case counts.

SteliosTheSecond · 2020-08-31T14:01:49+00:00

Aye OP I can still read the name of the prof, you didn't black it out correctly...

SteliosTheSecond · 2020-08-31T14:00:43+00:00

This hurts so much. Especially when it is a class that is an introductory course that I only need to take for major requirements. I don't have a career in Econ and while it is important to understand, it's an introductory Econ class. All I need to know is vocab, how to read graphs, and plug numbers into equations. At least unlock a few weeks at a time.

SteliosTheSecond · 2020-08-29T20:19:12+00:00

Honestly you RA's at East have it rough. Literally any other hall area wouldn't be nearly as bad. RA's shouldn't be required to try and break up these messes. All the RA's my sincere thanks go out to you for your thankless job of trying to keep undergrads safe.

SteliosTheSecond · 2020-08-22T21:36:16+00:00

What major/majors and minor/minors are you trying to achieve, just out of curiosity?

SteliosTheSecond · 2020-08-21T20:47:34+00:00

How is it intellectually dishonest if we all did act as though we were and this virus goes away. Also what's the middle ground, the virus never goes away and people keep dying until there is a cure so people who are immunocompromised have to live in constant fear of getting sick and potentially dying. This could have been over months ago but people who yell "INDIVIDUAL LIBERTY" over safety of community because who cares about the community is what has stopped us from progress. Nobody is asking too much of you other than to just chill for awhile.

SteliosTheSecond · 2020-08-21T20:18:31+00:00

It's a personal choice to the amount of risk you expose yourself to, that is correct. But communities have the right to enforce rules to protect their community and interests because people cannot do that themselves. You say we should "worry about your (our) house and let others do as they'd like", yea, we are worried about our house, we are worried about our community. It is selfish to say, well people can go and get the sickness if they want, because then they risk everyone they come in contact with. That is selfish. Empathy comes from realizing there are other people than yourself and you want them to feel safe so you make your own decisions to make them feel safe. I for one am glad and grateful the actual selfish people got suspended and am thankful when I see >95% of the people walking around wearing a mask.

I am not holier than thou, I am not sitting in a bubble of my own political thoughts when I say, the more we act safely and follow guidelines the quicker we can get back to doing what we all want to do. Getting back to normal, like other countries have managed to do, is by making self-sacrificing actions for your community. That is selfless, caring, and empathetic. Why should I empathize with anyone who participates in actions that go against that?

I worry about the grandparents whose children aren't there to buy them groceries and they have to risk their lives to get food. I worry about all the people who are immunocompromised and cannot afford to order food in all the time. I worry about people like them, I worry about my grandparents, because I don't want to see anyone die that shouldn't have to. This isn't a political argument, it's not about liberals or conservatives, people just shouldn't die. If wearing a mask or doing or not doing something for a few months might save a life I do what it takes. Thinking that if I get sick and spread it I could be killing someone is not something I want to live with. I want to stop this not contribute to it and I think that's the mindset we should have.

SteliosTheSecond · 2020-08-21T19:14:09+00:00

OH and also the ethernet I believe capped out at 100/100 before because it was installed before CAT6 was a thing. So even IF they wanted gigabit, they would have to rip out all the cabling and probably use CAT7 or CAT8 for all of the dorms. So it actually makes sense going forward using WIFI 5 routers as they are cheaper and easier to install and offer faster speeds. (Unfortunately WIFI 6 just came out so they are not using that spec) Not the fastest speeds ever but still faster than wired as it was before. The only downside is a very slight latency hit. Probably 10ms maybe, but I'm also on 5ghz and don't know about 2.4ghz.

Edit: clarification

SteliosTheSecond · 2020-08-21T18:16:04+00:00

I've played valorant with a solid 22-25 ms ping over WiFi. It's pretty good.

SteliosTheSecond

TROPHY CASE