Students
According to the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE), recruiters are looking for college students to build skills during undergraduate education and become “career ready,” which is why career readiness is one of Dean Lang’s top priorities. Career-readiness competencies include self-development, critical thinking, equity and inclusion, leadership, professionalism, teamwork, and technology. You get all of these through a liberal arts education, which means you can do pretty much anything with a liberal arts degree. This can be liberating but overwhelming, so resources such as the Liberal Arts Career Enrichment Network are here to help you explore, identify, and articulate your career goals, as well as the industries open to you!
The College of the Liberal Arts offers twenty-five IUG programs that allow students to stay a fifth year to earn their master’s degree. Typically, students apply for an IUG program in the fall of their third year. It is important to talk with your academic adviser early and often if you are considering an IUG so you can plan accordingly.
Because a major doesn’t always lead to a direct career path, our students participate in a variety of internship programs across different industries. Our academic programs create opportunities for students to gain transferable skills that make them qualified to participate in their internship of interest. With the help of the Liberal Arts Career Enrichment Network, students have access to hundreds of internship opportunities.
Penn State students have access to over 300 traditional study abroad programs and over 100 embedded programs that span over 140 countries! Explore your education abroad options.
Students work with their academic advisers to choose the best semester to participate in a global experience that works with their academic plans and interests. The most common semesters to go abroad are spring of your second year or anytime your third year.
Parents and Families
The College of the Liberal Arts is a community of people with a genuine interest in developing long-standing interpersonal relationships that help students succeed before and after they graduate. With this goal in mind, our six Student Services offices connect students with the resources and opportunities they need to be successful.
Incoming, first-year students register for courses at New Student Orientation (NSO). As part of NSO, students work directly with an academic adviser to discuss academic interests, review any college credit they earned while in high school, and enroll in classes. They will leave NSO with their first semester schedule set and ready to start classes on day one.
If your student has not yet accepted their offer, they should log into MyPennState and select the “Follow this link to accept your offer of admission” button to take the next step. We request students accept their offer by May 1 for summer/fall admission at any campus.
After accepting their offer, students will receive a notification in their MyPennState account asking them to sign up for New Student Orientation.
First-year students attending Penn State University Park are required to live on campus, and there are several housing areas from which to choose. The most popular is East Halls because it is primarily first-year students who live there, aside from the resident assistants. East Halls provides a wonderful opportunity for first-year students to bond with one another.