WARNING: Penn State Campus Lies Ahead

            The Penn State campus can be a hazardous place sometimes. I recently saw a meme on the PSU Facebook group that played off of the Dos Equis “Most Interesting Man in the World” ads:

Let me just say that there was a time when memes were not funny to me in the slightest. However, I hit a point where many of them were so unbelievably accurate that I had to accept them for what they were. I laughed quite a bit at this one about the Forum, considering I have been the victim of those tiles multiple times during my Penn State career. In fact, if you set up a video camera there during the first ice of the winter season I would be willing to bet you’d get a YouTube video similar to this one: Beaver Ave Slips & Falls.

This footage was taken downtown last year during State Patty’s day, and while the considerable levels of inebriation probably contributed to the falls, this is pretty typical of any icy or rainy day at Penn State. In other words, Penn State students as a whole probably have a higher average of weekly tumbles than any school set in a more hospitable environment.

To the architect that chose to use tile and marble in any and every opportunity on this campus, I’d like to ask if you had any ulterior motive besides just the look and appearance of the buildings. I’m sure Penn State students would agree with me that they have felt personally attacked by the materials on this campus at one point or another, such as the time I found myself sliding on my backside down the stairs outside Carnegie in the pouring rain.

While there may be some rough spots on campus, I can’t deny that I love each and every square foot of Penn State University, and if the laughs from these falls can’t outweigh the pain that results, then maybe we just need to lighten up. I mean if you can’t watch that YouTube video without laughing or at least feeling a small amount of pleasure from watching people’s feet fly above their heads while caught in a total state of shock, then maybe Penn State isn’t the school for you.