Penn State Week 5

Monday (6/15) – Our morning started off with a compost tour given by Al, an amazing and knowledgeable man who has developed and implemented so many incredible recycling or sustainability programs here at Penn State. During our two-hour tour, we drove all around campus and visited some of the huge recycling areas or saw some of the huge compactors while Al gave us loads of information. We then got to see the spot where all the mulch and soil is stored, and we briefly got to see how it’s made, which was really neat. After 2 hours and a wealth of new information, our tour unfortunately came to an end. We were all amazed by not only how much we learned, but also by how intrigued we were on the topic. It was so cool to see how much Penn State cares about the environment and to learn about all these innovative ideas they have to make the campus even more sustainable than it already is. Once our tour wrapped up, Al treated us each with a smencil (a smelly pencil) and a fun little button pin before sending us on our way. 

Next we quickly met with Beth Egan, who described to us what it’s like working in the food service industry in a large school district setting. It’s always nice to meet with people who also studied dietetics or nutrition, so I enjoyed her session and all the information she provided for us. From there we headed downstairs to tour Café Laura, a retail-style restaurant located in Mateer Building, for a tour and a delicious lunch.

 After we finished up we continued right along and headed over meet with 3 members of the purchasing department within Housing and Food Services at Penn State. I guess I never realized how much hard work and planning goes into purchasing food and food supplies for the whole campus, so it was very eye-opening and a wealth of new information for me! Next (yes there’s more… it was a busy day!) we headed over to the Penn Stater Hotel for a tour of the laundry room, which is responsible for all the laundry at Penn State – whether it’s bed linens, kitchen dish towels, and so on. I have never seen a washing machine as big as the one located in that building – in fact I didn’t even realize washing machines that big even existed! But I guess they have to when there’s a ton of laundry to be done!

Tuesday (6/16) – We’ve been here for over 4 weeks now and every day has been incredible, but today was by far my favorite day so far! Why, might you ask? Because we got to tour Beaver Stadium! Being the huge football fan that I am, this was a big deal for me, and I was very impressed by the stadium. Michigan State needs to do some renovations to their stadium if they want to rival Penn State’s Stadium!! Our tour was given by “Spider”, who was so informative and so kind to us all. We walked around for a while, got to go into the Presidential Suite, walked through the locker room (where we had some fun and pretended to be actual football players), and then made it to the grand finale…. The field! 

We entered the field through the gates just like the players do, and we were allowed to walk out onto the end zone. That was definitely an experience I will never forget! After a few sessions throughout the day, we headed back over to Redifer so we could each present our individual presentations on a topic of our choosing. We were all a bit nervous, but in the end we survived, and we ended up getting a ton of helpful feedback for presentations in the future, so it was definitely well-worth it.

Wednesday (6/17) – Today was a bit of a treat for us because we got to ditch the business casual clothes and professional meetings and instead take a fun field trip to Bellville with Chef Bill! We spent the morning wandering around various flea markets and checking out all the freshly-baked Amish baked goods, and when we were done at the first one we drove about 10 minutes down the road to another flea market. Personally, I’m not big into shopping so I didn’t spend a lot of money there, but some of the other interns definitely took advantage of the shopping spree and came back with a ton of new purchases! Later on in the afternoon, we checked out a livestock auction where they were selling various animals like goats, cattle, pigs, etc. It was definitely a new experience for me and it was like nothing I had ever seen before, but I probably won’t be going back there in my spare time. However, it was a new experience and I’m glad I had the opportunity to check it out! After our day-long field trip to Bellville, we were all pretty exhausted and ended up relaxing and taking a much-needed nap when we got back to the dorms.

Thursday (6/18) – Today was another fun-filled day that involved some field-trips. We started off the morning with a tour of Tait Farms, a small farm located about 2 minutes from here. It rained off and on all morning, but that didn’t stop us from walking around the whole farm - checking out the crops, the greenhouses, and the gift shop. As we walked through we found some strawberry plants and took a few minutes to pick some and test them out. They were delicious! 

After we finished up at the Farm, we took a quick lunch-break and then drove out to Shaver’s Creek for some team bonding. Shaver’s Creek is located pretty far out from campus, way back in the woods/mountains, so the scenery was absolutely stunning. Carolyne was our leader for the day, and she didn’t waste any time jumping right into the team-building. We completed all types of different activities, designed to get us working together or to learn how to deal with challenges. Some of the tasks were incredibly difficult and frustrating, but we managed to get through them and learned a lot about ourselves and our team in the process. It was incredible and very eye-opening experience, and I’m glad we were able to take part in it. Even though it stormed like crazy and we got invaded by bugs – oh the joys of nature! By 5 pm our session had wrapped up and we headed back to State College, and boy were we exhausted. We were all looking forward to showering right away and then relaxing for the night, which is exactly what we did.

Friday (6/19) - Today was a very laid-back day for us, as the only thing on our agenda was a tour of Wegman's (rated the number one grocery store in America last year!!). Jimmy, the store manager, first showed us a video displaying all of Wegman's values and standards they live up to, and then the tour began. We went around each department, learned all about the produce, meats, seafoods, deli, etc. and Jimmy pointed out all kinds of minor details on products or with employees that show how much Wegman's really cares about their customers. 

The weekend (6/20 and 6/21) - This weekend was a special weekend for me because it was my 21st birthday. Woohoo! It was a little bit strange being away from home on my 21st birthday, but my parents made the 8 hour trip from Michigan just to spend the weekend with me! That was definitely something special. We spent the weekend wandering around the State College area as I showed them around and passed along some of my newly-learned information about Penn State. I felt like a local Penn State student as I was showing my parents around, which was strange to me because I still feel new to this town (even after being here 5 weeks!) I took them to back to Tait Farms, which is the farm we toured last week, took them along the shops on College Ave, and then we ventured out to a nearby winery where we had a wine tasting to celebrate my 21st birthday! All in all it was a great weekend with my parents, and even though I was so sad to see them leave, I'm excited to see what our next week at Penn State has in store for us!