Do you ever meet someone in public at Penn State and make conversation for a few minutes? You ask them where they live off campus, and their response makes you think, “Wow, that makes perfect sense.”

Penn State has 46,000 students, all of whom need a place to call home in Happy Valley. Choosing where you want to live comes with an unintended side effect: everyone else now has a subconscious opinion of you before you even meet.

The apartment complex you choose tells more about an individual than you’d think.

Therefore, we at Onward State compiled a list of what certain apartment complexes say about their residents.

Oliv Hetzel

If you live in the oLive Hetzel you are likely counting down the days until it is warm enough to have people over to swim in the rooftop pool. You stopped caring about not letting strangers into your apartment, but you will definitely complain about it on Yik Yak when random people start using the pool. You haven’t gotten tired of walking to and from downtown … yet.

You and your roommates have been planning to use the rooftop grill since you moved in, but you know it will never leave the group chat. A Big Chicken wrapper sits on the floor next to the random influencer energy drink the girls next door somehow have partnerships with.

The Maxxen

If you live in the Maxxen, you likely love to skip class, but it’s okay because you can probably afford it. 

Fire alarms, your next-door neighbor’s JBL, and your brand-new Apple headphones have all done irreversible damage to your ears. El Jefe’s and Mezeh right downstairs have also done an incredible amount of damage to your wallet, but that doesn’t stop you from peeping over your windowsill and checking the Primanti Bros. line.

You take pride in talking about how nice it is to live there and will find any excuse to throw a pregame. Love Island reunion? Well, aren’t we lucky?

The cute bar cart in the corner has wine left over from the last time your mom came up and visited. Red October is underway, and you think it may finally be the Phillies’ year? Sure, we can check the graveyard for any scraps of liquor. Besides, you take pride in the droves of empty bottles lined up on the counter and make sure you get every last drop (it’ll probably last longer than the Phillies).

Oliv Highlands

If you live in the oLive Highlands, you’re exhausted from explaining the difference between Highlands and Hetzel.

Now that pool season is over, you’re not really sure what to do with yourself. The five-minute walk to Champs and Brothers calls out to you every night as you sit on the nicest leather couches that the state of Pennsylvania has to offer. 

You stay up way too late, conversing with roommates on the barstools and kitchen island for the third night in a row. No matter how late at night or early in the morning, people in the highlands love a good deep talk on their barstools.

You take pride in the apartment’s unique vibe and won’t shut up about the wooden, almost rustic interior. When looking for housing, your parents were impressed by the study room. You knew there was never a chance you were ever going to use it, though. 

You’ve been procrastinating on getting a group together to make s’mores outside by the fire pit. Deep down, you know that two months from now, you’d be wishing it was nice enough for a fire.

University Terrace

If you live at University Terrace, you’ve got Wendy’s Biggie Bags lying around the apartment. During sylly week, you spent over $100 on late-night munchies and decided the rewards program sounded really good.

You skip class way too much, too. Raining out? Too hungover? The Eagles couldn’t get the job done the night before? That 9 a.m. probably wasn’t happening anyway.

It’s fine, though, because you’ll earn those steps back on the far and dimly lit trek home from downtown or frat row.

You get serious FOMO watching last-minute plans unfold, knowing that because you live so far away, you have to make plans a week in advance. But otherwise, you’re at peace with where you live, tucked away far enough from campus that you can pretend the chaos doesn’t exist.

The Standard

If you live at The Standard, you’ve never once uttered the term “Yugo Echelon,” and you absolutely HATE when people confuse you for The Metropolitan.

Even though you’re only 10 feet closer to campus, you guys think you’re all so much better. The post-9 a.m. Starbucks trips you insist are keeping you going actually do nothing but hurt your wallet and give you the worst caffeine crash imaginable.

Speaking of your wallet, you left that at Cafe 210 West by accident, along with basically all of your belongings from the afternoon before.

The caffeine crash you paid $12 for hits the second you step back into the apartment, right after you take the stairs because the elevators are down yet again.

You sleep until the fire alarm inevitably wakes you up midway through your nap. Then, as the sun pierces through the blinds overlooking campus, you listen to all the singing and laughter coming from the Cafe patio. You’ve gone the past two days and probably shouldn’t go again. You go.

The Yards

If you live at The Yards, you likely forgot to sign up for housing.

You tell people you live just a bit off campus, but you fail to reiterate that it’s almost a whole other zip code. You are numb to the core. Either from the below-freezing walks to anywhere in the winter or the amount of cursed CATA bus experiences you’ve had. It took you months, but you finally accepted that every trip to campus is a 25-minute commitment.

You could walk, but that attendance code is just not worth the frostbite. You love telling people how nice and quiet your neighborhood is. Mostly because nothing ever happens there.

Although you probably have a nicer kitchen, living room, backyard, and bedroom than everyone else, you’d trade it all just to roll out of bed and be in class in 10 minutes. You get happy when your friends say, “We should come over sometime,” but you know that they are never making that bus ride.

Centre Court

If you live at Centre Court, you likely never get enough sleep because there is always something going on at DP Dough.

At this point, the commotion outside your apartment just doesn’t faze you, but instead motivates you to go out. The constant stimulation makes you want to go out more, almost like you get an itch the longer you stay inside. People who live here have learned to thrive in the chaos.

You know Centre Court is not the nicest place in State College, but you will defend it with your life. Loving Centre Court means never cheating on Sower’s Harvest. You uphold that and make it your whole personality.