I wonder, how I take advantage of that?
I advise you to not give a shit about it because you can learn way more at home, unless you want a degree. If you do want that piece of paper with their name, study and get inside.
99,9999% of research there is shit, if you are serious about it, try to find a way to move and study abroad(depends highly on your family's social status, hehe).
Join clubs/societies to meet new people and try out new things.
I was a military wife for a lot of years. I have lived near a few big universities. They tend to foster used book stores, certain kinds of hobby stores (comic stores, gaming stores, etc), museums and other "intellectual elite" things that you often cannot find in other towns of similar size or cannot find at all elsewhere or cannot find the same quality thus people will drive farther to go there.
I lived in Manhattan Kansas at one time. It was about 50k population with about 11k students and 5k faculty and staff. It was awesome. It had used book stores, two art stores at the mall (one of which sold the works of local artists so they could make a living), and two "children's museums" to give the kids an intellectually enriching alternative to Chuck E Cheese. People who lived in the state capital an hour away (a much larger city) would book birthday parties and the like at the children's museum. We also had a small zoo which was in many ways better than the larger zoo in the capital.
A big university attracts people who will spend time and money on intellectual activities. This is a business opportunity if you want to take advantage of it.