Penn State Around the World

Two of my greatest passions in life are Penn State and traveling. Recently, at 3:00am on a Tuesday morning I was woken by a text message. My dad, a 1985 graduate of Penn State, was in Belgium for a business trip. He had arrived at the train station in Brussels and just stepped onto the platform when the first thing he noticed was a person wearing a Penn State sweatshirt. Being that we are from a family that bleeds blue and white, he just had to let me know! These days, it rarely surprises me and still always makes me smile when we run into Penn Staters during our travels all over the world – whether it is in the Badlands, South Dakota at Mount Rushmore, France, or Monte Carlo.

I recently came across an article entitled, “50 Ways Penn State Has Shaped the World” (you can find this at http://www.psu.edu/ur/about/50ways.html). The list includes number 17: “Engineers Everywhere – One in 50 professionally licensed engineers in the U.S. is a Penn State graduate.” My dad, an electronics engineer, is living proof. Number 37: “Penn Staters Everywhere – Penn State has more than 466,000 living alumni. One in every 720 Americans, and one in every 70 Pennsylvanians, is a graduate of Penn State.” The person who was in the Brussels train station at the exact same time as my dad is certainly evidence of this.

One day I hope my job provides me with the travel opportunities my dad enjoys (he averages about four major international trips a year). If I make enough contacts while in college, I just might be able to visit most of the countries that interest me by simply visiting other Penn State grads! The global presence of Penn State and the opportunities that provides is just one of the reasons why I know that I would never go to college anywhere else.