Stella and I had a great road trip. Clear skies, not much traffic and happily, good tours and good feelings about both universities (Penn State and Pitt). Here’s two pictures that kind of sum up (in my mind) the obvious difference between the University of Pittsburgh and Penn State.
Dorms, University of Pittsburgh
In the urban university, space is at a premium and so buildings go up and up instead of sprawling all over the place.
Nitany Lion, Penn State. The Nitany Lion, mascot of the school, is here enshrined in the most non-urban setting imaginable, a grove of trees.
Meanwhile in State College, where the school was built before the town, land, land and more land makes for a sprawling campus that required us to take two buses just to tour the campus!
We loved both places (maybe we loved Pitt a little more, being city-folk at heart). And if we wind up making trips to Pittsburgh I will get the added benefit of seeing the Carnegie Museums, the Warhol, the Mattress Factory and all the rest of the lively art scene there. Yippee!! As with millions of other parents, we’ll be plunking down our money soon.
More pictures at flickr. And the one thing I didn’t photograph (I was driving) but Stella did, is the mega-humungous Beaver Stadium, a steel-exoskeletoned affair that I kept referring to as Darth Vader. Stella took a couple pictures and I will share when I get them.
