Penn State University - La Vie Yearbook (University Park, PA)

Page 16 text:

This is how it all began — September 1966. Amid a morass of luggage we arrived at Happy Valley our emo- tion running the gamut from exhilaration to pure dread. The roads to State College were decked with direction signs featuring stars, squares and curlicues . . . these to be matched with the stickers in those orientation packets. Somehow we managed to follow the bouncing ball and arrived at West Halls in the shadow of the Nit- tany Lion or East Halls with its pastures and peacefully grazing cows. The memory of moving-in is like a series of slides projected on a screen for a millisecond . . . boys in orientation badges parking cars in the rain . . . parents of every size and description hovering solici- tously about . . . fathers glaring at each other and risk- ing soul and body to commandeer those elusive “dol- lies”. Then came the unforgettable moment when the door swung open and a voice emanating from a strang- er's face said, “Hi, I'm your roommate. The din subsided, each one of us stood among the suitcases and watched Mom and Dad drive away. So this is it . . . we’re in college, we're at Penn State, we will shed the high school image and become ... be- come what? The university overwhelms us but one of the faces in the hall smiles . . . there is a bit of human- ity here. 8

Page 18 text:

We embark on the frantic round of activity known as Orientation. We spend endless hours pursuing elusive advisors in equally elusive buildings with incredible names. We try to impress on our weary memories the location of the HUB, the time we register, and the name of the person in the next room. Registration is a circus; we are minute parts of the giant assembly line winding through Rec Hall. We run from table to table to the cadence of Sorry, that sec- tion is closed. We submit cards 2 through 8 with care- less abandon. We have a schedule . . . the great com- puter in Shields has a record of our existence. We may have squash first period on Saturday but the realization is dawning that we are students.