The main building of the school is geographically located outside the city of Potsdam.
Clarkson University is famous for its sporting achievements. The athletic teams of the institution are known as Golden Knights. The university community has 20 sports teams. With the exception of men's and women's alpine as well as Nordic skiing, all others participate in the NCAA. Men's and women's hockey teams participate in the first division, both playing ECAC. The men's team is a traditional force in ECAC (they won 5 ECAC-Tournament championships in 2007). Other sports groups participate in the Freedom League Conference and include baseball, men's and women's basketball, cross-country, men's golf, men's and women's lacrosse, men's and women's football, softball, men's and women's swimming, and women's volleyball.
On the basis of the school operates a student association. It includes more than 130 clubs. For example:
- The Club Council (CUB), which conducts various activities on campus throughout the semester, and also creates meetings with other organizations and university offices and departments. CUB provides professional audio and video support.
- K2CC (Amateur Radio Club) is the oldest organization of the institution that still operates. K2CC has both analog and digital voice signals. The club also owns a room for debate and experimentation, equipped with DX, a weak signal and satellite radio stations and antennas.
- WTSC is a popular radio station that is completely managed by the student council. Students can broadcast their own shows and offer a variety of music from Rap to Alternative, classic rock and street punk. The station has over 1000 CDs and nearly 24 terabytes of music.
- Clarkson Photo Club is a group of students with interests in photography (black and white, color and digital).
- Clarkson Robotics is a unique campus club that allows students at Clarkson University, along with local schoolchildren, to carry out a long-term development, assembly and testing of a robot that participates every year in the FIRST Robotics competition.
- Applied CS Labs - Laboratory of Applied Computer Science. It consists of the Open Source Institute, the Internet Learning Lab and the Virtual Reality Lab. These laboratories, which are part of the computer science department, work almost completely under student conditions, offering the opportunity to gain experience in managing both facilities and projects.
- The Clarkson Pep Band is a student organization that supports the teams of the Golden Knights hockey club.
- The Clarkson Theater Group (CTC) is a studio theater group that is part of the institution and is supported by the Student Association of the University.
On the basis of the educational institution there is a large library, comfortable hostels, sports complexes, various sports equipment and sports grounds, canteens, cafes and pizzerias, shops and even banks.
The university is part of the Association of Independent Technological Universities and Sport affiliations: National Collegiate Athletic Association.
