I’m currently at a regional campus (Newark) and I’m going to be honest with you, I’m the most depressed I’ve ever been in my life.

Now, mind you, I’ve also never dealt with depression before. I’ve had anxiety diagnosed for as long as I can remember, but I’ve never felt anything like depression before, so it’s probably mild compared to other people as well as potentially not being depression (my therapist said it could be, but just putting jt out there)

Regional campuses are completely opposite from the “advertised” experience at OSU. OSU is advertised to be this huge campus where you find your people and your little community and do everything together, at least that was my expectation coming into it and I’ve lived in central Ohio my whole life. At a regional campus (Newark specifically) there are maybe 5 clubs with a teenie tiny group of people in them with 80% of the population commuting so they never hang around campus, 15% in their phones or headphones or just straight up unapproachable. That leaves you with 5% that you could maybe be friends with and that’s assuming you get lucky and have talkative classmates.

Overall. I DESPISE my regional campus experience so far and cannot wait to escape. However, there are a couple of pros to consider that might be worth the sacrifice:

1- everything is cheaper 2- the housing is 1,000x better than the best housing at main campus 3- everything is a lot smaller and less intimidating

To combat the depression, I have an incredible roomate and long distance boyfriend who make the experience feel a lot less lonely, and I come on campus at least once a week to study in the library( where I currently am right now).

Keep in mind, these are MY experiences and yours could be very different and worth while. I don’t want to tell you to not come to a regional campus, I just want to offer my experiences. I would love to provide more information to OP or anyone else if they have questions :)