Campus in Clarksville

For anyone not familiar with the area, you may not know that Clarksville, Tennessee, is home to the Austin Peay Governors. For those of you who are from Clarksville, you have probably at least passed the campus located in the downtown area. Recently I graduated from the lovely school for the second time with my master’s degree, so I can say for a fact that Austin Peay is an amazing place to spend one’s time as a student.

When I first started looking for colleges while I was in high school, most of the students around me seemed to talk about wanting to go away to big, far away colleges. However, my heart was set on Austin Peay—and for a few reasons. The first was simply financial. It seems like many high school graduates don’t take in how expensive college can be, despite the fact it’s talked about so frequently. Just staying at home makes such a large difference in the expenses, which makes living in a college town an amazing advantage—especially if entering Freshmen take advantage of opportunities such as the Tennessee Promise! Another reason I decided to attend Austin Peay was because the campus is beautiful. The school takes pride in planting the campus red each spring, and there are plenty of outdoor sitting areas to take advantage of during warm weather. The buildings are a mix of old and modern, making for an interesting scene while walking across campus, not even mentioning the statues and water features that students enjoy hanging around.

The main reason I decided to attend Austin Peay, though, is because I heard wonderful things about it as a school. And having attended, I can attest that Austin Peay really is an amazing school. While I didn’t have the experience of living on campus, I did spend a great amount of time attending events, classes, and taking advantage of all my college had to offer. I enjoyed several readings by visiting authors, film festivals dedicated to diversity, and even participated in the yearly school pageant of Miss APSU as well as many student-run readings as well where I was able to present poetry and short stories to a small audience. Austin Peay’s capable students, led by compassionate faculty, held concerts and plays each year—my favorite remains the musical production of Anything Goes that I ushered for five nights only to find it was increasingly better.

Unlike some students, I did take advantage of the wide array of classes available, spending time in my undergraduate years in different departments even after I had finished my standard core classes. I went to extra psychology classes and took beginning education classes as well; I went beyond the mandated one year of foreign language and took four semesters of French, attending the off-campus immersion days so lovingly hosted by the French professors. I even took a step fitness course for a credit during one of my last semesters and I still regret not being able to take the scuba diving courses that were offered, or the aerial silks classes. Austin Peay certainly has a larger catalouge of potential classes than I ever expected—and if you don’t believe me, you can scroll through them yourself here!

Of course, my favorite department obviously has to be the one I spent the most time in—the English department. While it is only one part of a much larger university, I feel like the professors that make up the English department show the amount of dedication that Austin Peay has to offer its students. Even as a Freshman, I quickly found the professors incredibly approachable and easy to talk to, but through the years I found myself surrounded by encouraging instructors who all strived to see their students be successful, ones who were honestly passionate about what they were teaching and the act of sharing it with others. These professors saw the ability in their students, and they always helped in whatever way they could. Really, I feel like my experience at Austin Peay was so amazing not because of the school itself but because of the dedicated professors it is made of.

Austin Peay is certainly not a big city college. It isn’t exactly glamourous, our sports teams aren’t on the top scales, and if there are wild parties to mark the college experience, I never heard about them. I know to some people, going to a small-scale college isn’t exactly the dream. I know for kids who grew up in Clarksville, the dream is getting out of a suburban town. However, the benefits of going to Austin Peay don’t just include staying in the beautiful city of Clarksville. Austin Peay is a university filled with unique and incredible professors, with opportunities to explore things you hadn’t thought a smaller scale university had to offer, and a chance to really discover all of the great things Clarksville has to offer. Located in the downtown Clarksville area, Austin Peay State University is truly something that makes this city more incredible.

(Photos taken by Samuel Millspaugh)