Student Stories
Student Profile: Michael Harostock – Undergraduate Research
On a day off from classes at Penn State Wilkes-Barre [Michael Harostock was enrolled prior to entering Altoona in the fall of 2006], Harostock was invited to observe the hospital's new heart-lung machine in action. The machine was the first of its kind in the country, so the opportunity was significant. How significant an opportunity this would turn out to be was not imaginable at the time.
[ Read More ]
|
Faculty Outreach to Community
As a wonderful illustration of positive town-gown relations, Penn State Altoona and the Altoona Housing Authority are working together for both better education for students and improved quality of life for Housing Authority residents. The purpose of this project, which kicked off during the fall 2005 semester, is to establish an academically-focused Community Outreach Partnership among Penn State Altoona, the Altoona Housing Authority, and a network of affiliated human services organizations in Blair County over a three-year period.
[ Read More ] |
Mini-Baja
Since 1999, students enrolled in the college's electro-mechanical engineering technology program have worked in teams to build and manufacture their own working cars. The vehicles, which resemble go-karts, are assembled from the ground up; students work together to design and manufacture all of the components, from frames to suspension and steering to body panels.
They also get to test their skills against students from other top colleges in the country when they compete in the Mini-Baja competition each spring. In 2006, five Penn State Altoona students traveled to Wisconsin for the Mini Baja mid-west competition. For the first time since Penn State Altoona began competing, the "Go Lions" team placed in the top half of all competing teams.
[ Read More ]
|
Puerto Rico Exchange
Penn State Altoona offers an exchange program between our college and Inter American University in Bayamon, Puerto Rico. This program is geared towards any major or anyone who has an interest in the Spanish language. However, knowledge of the Spanish language is not required. Students can travel to Puerto Rico during either the Fall or Spring semester, or even the entire academic year. This program is limited to a maximum of 6 (six) students a year from each institution. Students will pay Penn State tuition for the duration of the program and will not have to pay tuition to the other university. This program is a great opportunity to learn about another culture, meet people from other parts of the world, while at the same time earning Penn State Altoona credit.
[ Read More ] |
|
| 
Service Learning Across Disciplines
With Women's Studies as a common link, three professors from different disciplines collaborate to bring an extraordinary experience to their students.
During summer 2006, Lee Ann De Reus (associate professor of Human Development and Family Studies and Women's Studies at Penn State Altoona), Lorraine Dowler (head of the Women's Studies program and associate professor of Geography at the University Park campus), and Marla Jaksch (lecturer in Women's Studies), took seventeen students from the University Park campus to Tanzania for three weeks, where they embarked on an intensive service-learning experience.
[ Read More ]
|
Student Profile: George Rohac - Student Publisher
In August 2005, Rohac attended a Web comics conference with some friends in Baltimore, Maryland. He left the conference tasked to manage the publication of a book, a compilation of comics created by these friends and other creators.
Now a Communications major at Penn State Altoona, Rohac already can add "publisher and editor" to his list of credentials. He represents a new breed of publishers: a generation that looks beyond traditional publishing houses and main-stream advertising to the new frontier of the Internet as their main source of promotion.
[ Read More ]
Facilities – The Hawthorn Building
The Hawthorn Building, built in 2004, houses 56 faculty offices and 24 classrooms, including a music rehearsal room and three computer classrooms. The building consists of approximately 58,800 square feet. Of that total square footage, 10,000 square feet is dedicated to a computer center, run by the Office of Information Technology, with offices and classrooms to provide support to the computer center. The Hawthorn Building also contains general classrooms, seminar rooms, a lecture hall, the Pechter Family Music Room, a food service area, and faculty offices.
[ Read More ] |
|
