PSU Students React After Sandusky Sentencing
By: Aaron Cheslock
Updated: October 10, 2012
While there's plenty of reaction from the victim's lawyers, from Sandusky's defense team, Sandusky himself, and Penn State officials. But what about Penn state students?
Wtaj went out to get their take on whether the sentencing was too much, or too little.
Many students we talked to found out about the sentencing through social media. Penn state junior Daniel Benkoski says it was hard to miss.
"I was actually in class, it was coming up on twitter, it kept popping up... It was kind of hard to not notice because everything was a trending topic, Jerry Sandusky, the sentence, everything was Sandusky, Sandusky..."
Ashley Reed was on her way home to get the latest on the sentencing when we talked to her. After hearing that it was 30-60 years, she wasn't happy. As a senior, she's been through the before, the during, and the after of this scandal.
"...it's been really hard on us especially with the opinions of people on the outside of the university, like I'm heavily involved in THON, so when I go canning, I've had people yell at me, I've had people throw things at me..."
Almost a year later, Junior Leah Pollock says many students are still getting looks or comments.
"People ask where I go to school, and then they ask me questions about it, or make comments"
Benkoski hears it too...
"Where do you go? I go to Penn state, and everyone would kind of be like ehh..."
Kristen Parkes says some ask her if she's going to leave Penn State.
"...some people have asked me if I'm planning on transferring..."
Parkes knows that even though Sandusky's behind bars, it's not over for students.
"It definitely will follow me for the rest of my life when I tell people that I went to Penn State during when everything came out about Sandusky."
Reed agrees that the pairing of Penn State and the Sandusky scandal will never stop.
"It's really never going to be over. It's always going to be something that is associated with Penn state..."
While students are affected, every student we talked to tonight, stressed that they're not the victims in this scandal. They say they're merely inconvenienced compared to the real victims.
