It makes sense... but as someone directionally challenged, I can totally imagine myself doing something like that. She was basically turned around by 180 degrees.
I went to a big-ten school where we had a somewhat similar set up. The bulk of students were on one side of campus and there was frat row, and a little neighborhood there that catered to students that had bars that tended to look the other way regarding fake ids, and places that let in 18+ that had bands and stuff...then about a 1.5-2 miles away, on the other side of campus, was an area around "Main Street" where the "grown-ups" hung out (grown-ups as defined by college students as people who've graduated from college and have jobs and are probably in their later 20s and 30s). Students usually didn't venture down there until Junior/Senior years when the whole "campus" stuff started to get a little old, and when they were old enough to get into bars. I may or may not have been able to find it on my own at the start of my sophomore year. I definitely wouldn't have ventured there alone at night on purpose. Occasionally, if I wanted to feel very adult, I'd venture down with a friend to a coffee shop or to do a little window shopping, but it isn't the type of place I'd have cruised looking for things to do alone on a Friday night, knowing that I wouldn't be able to get into any of the bars or music venues and when there were plenty of parties up in my neck of the woods.
I almost never know where I am in space and rely on recognizing landmarks. I often have the experience of thinking I know which direction I'm heading, only to find after a couple blocks that I'm going the wrong direction. This is true even in places I know quite well. I've worked in the same building for six months and find it disorienting every single time I walk out the entrance on the other side of the building. If I were intoxicated, all bets would be off.