Growing up in a small college town, I earned myself the title of "townie." Sometimes you see this kind of things in movies and read about it in books, but most of the time, you are not getting the story from the perspective of the local. Stories love to give you the perspective of the relative outsider in the situation, but when do you ever get to read about what happens when there's an influx of roughly 9,000 students to a small town that has a permanent population of roughly 5,000 people.
Growing up I always dreaded late August, not because I had to go back to school, but because that's when all the college students would return for the year. It would mark the time of warnings from my mom and not being allowed to go to Kutztown's Main Street alone. Main Street would be overrun with students lounging on the porches of town homes, red solo cups and cigarette butts littering the sidewalks, and there would be absolutely no parking anywhere until after finals were done for the spring semester. As I got older it marked a time of keeping my head down and not reacting to the lewd things yelled at from cars, porches, and windows. Even when I was home this past Septemeber and walking with my mom to the local Red Box to get a movie, something highly inappropriate and offensive was yelled at us. None of these things made me especially appreciate what Kutztown University does for my home town. It boosts the economy of our little town, and with a slowly declining permanent resident population, this is a good thing. KU also offers the opportunity to high schoolers to get an early start on their college careers and take classes. I appreciate these things, I do, but it doesn't stop me from being that stereotypical townie when I'm home.
Come August of 2014, and my family had packed the car up and I was moving from the place I'd lived for 18 years. Finding the right college for me had been a bit of a struggle for my family and me. I had wanted to go far away, all of my top school picks were in Florida. After lots of discussions between my parents and me, and discussing in depth with my grandparents, I had decided to stay in Pennsylvania and attend Millersville University. At first I didn't really see the irony of it, a small college town girl going to another small town to be a college girl. Now in my junior year, I am able to appreciate the irony, but I like to believe that the permanent Millersville residents don't feel the same way about the time of year when Millersville University is in session as I do about KU.
Overall, I've found that these situations aren't really similar to each other. Here at Millersville, I see some trash on the sidewalks after weekends, but it's nothing like main street in Kutztown. I have yet to have something lewd yelled at me from a car. I'm able to feel safe walking home alone at night from the library. It's kind of strange how where I've grown up made me feel such a strong way about small town colleges, and how attending one has really made me rethink my feelings. I think part of it may be how each college is situated relative to the towns. Kutztown University is situated directly at the end of Main Street in Kutztown. It is close to many residential properties and Main Street itself is enough to have students coming into town. There's also many properties located near and even within neighborhood's where permanent Kuztown residents live. There's not really any way for a townie to avoid hearing the parties, seeing the aftermath, and really experiencing the full force of Kutztown University students. Millersville University is situated a little farther from residential areas. There's no real downtown here, unless you go into the city of Lancaster, too. KU also has a larger student body than MU, and MU has a lower acceptance rate than KU. It could also be that KU is a larger party school than Millersville, but that probably depends on which students you're asking about it.
When I'm home I will still fall into the role of townie, living in a small college town while attending college has not made me any more sympathetic to college students who are on the receiving end of glares. I feel like being a townie before becoming a college student in a small college town made me more aware of how my actions could reflect on the community, and I wish that more students who attend small college towns would have that insight. I think students often forget that there are people who have to take care of the place they only temporarily live at, and I'm saying this for both Millersville and Kutztown, and any other schools this would apply too. There are other people who are not living in the town in order to receive a higher education, or party, or whatever reasons anyone is attending school for, and it's important to respect them as well as their town.
