Study what you love!

I think an important part of the Penn education that often gets overlooked is the opportunity students have to study what they truly love during their four years. We walk on to College Green that first day as a freshman, and a world of choice is available to us, something that is really taken for granted by American students. So embrace it! Rather than feeling obligated to study something "useful," take the linguistics class about the creation and evolution of languages or the comparative literature class about different narrative styles across the world.

Or, just feel lucky that you're not a student in a country like, say, Spain, where your college entrance exam determines what you study. Spanish students who score in between certain marks must study history, for example, while higher-scoring students are admitted to fields such as law or medicine. Rather than choosing majors and minors, Spanish students start in their respective departments in their freshmen year. Ugh!

So test the waters, and explore different majors and minors, either online or at Penn itself when you take a visit. The admissions office has a list of classes that you can sit in on to get a feel for academics at Penn. It's your duty as a prospective Penn student to push the envelope and find what really interests you, because you have the rest of your life to do something useful, but only four years to be a Penn student!

Book buying fun

Ah, if I were at Penn, I’d be preparing myself for the first day of classes on Wednesday (obviously, I’m not). The first day (and even the first week) usually feels like an extension of NSO (New Student Orientation), since most professors’ assignments consist of reading the first chapter in a textbook or even hunting down and buying the book. A piece of advice: AVOID the bookstore at all costs – check Web sites such as Amazon.com, Half.com, and BetterThantheBookstore.com. The latter was created by a Penn student two springs ago and caters only to Penn students from House of Our Own Bookstore on Spruce Street, so I recommend that you check it out. If you choose to ignore my advice and march into bookstore at 36^th and Walnut, you’ll come out having spent way too much. I’ve personally found luck with Half.com because the prices are usually pretty good, and it’s very easy to sell your books back at the end of the semester because you’re unlikely to ever want to open them again.

I’ve heard of people from other schools not buying a book until they need it for an assignment, because every once in awhile and professor will put a book on the list for class that you will never use. However, if you choose to follow this route and find that you cannot buy the book you need in time, you’re out of luck and will be forced to pray that someone will lend you their book for a night.

In the event that you simply don’t want to fork over the cash for certain books, many professors will put a copy on reserve in the Rosengarten Reserve in the library of Van Pelt. This is alternative route for students taking a literature or history-type course which requires you to read a lot of single books. So if you take English ___: Shakespeare, rather than buying each of the 10 required readings, you can pop down to the Reserve to read in their when necessary. Books on reserve cannot be taken out of the library, however, so get cozy in Van Pelt.

A fourth book option I’ve heard of involves the Borrow Direct and/or Easy Borrow system offered by the Penn library system. It’s said that if you borrow a textbook or other book from another university, you can continue to renew the book from the other library until the semester is over. I warn you however, that this information remains unconfirmed, but if anyone is willing to take up the challenge, let me know ;-)

Estoy en Sevilla!

Hola a todos!

As you can see, I'm now writing to you all from Sevilla, in the south of Spain. Tomorrow I'm moving in with my (as yet undisclosed) host family, so everyone in the program is really nervous. We haven't really been improving our Spanish that much yet because we haven't met any Spaniards, though I'm sure tomorrow will be the beginning of what is hopefully a very successful venture.

Back at Penn, however, NSO (New Student Orientation) is just beginning as freshman move into one of the 11 College Houses, saying good-bye to old friends and hello to new ones. It's really a fun time at Penn for everyone, not just freshmen, because upperclassmen are reuniting with people they haven't seen since May. So enjoy the whole week, because once class starts, it's best to stay on top of your work from the beginning of the semester, rather than trying to play catch-up later on.

Hasta la próxima semana!

One Week Left

With just over a week until I jet over to Spain, I'm taking time to just relax at home and prepare myself for departure. I just finished working at my usual summer job, but next year I don't plan on returning there. I've been working as a marketing representative at a local casino since I've graduated high school, but I plan on getting an internship next summer (once I figure out what I want to intern for, of course).

Packing for a big trip abroad will be probably be incredibly difficult, unlike packing for a regular semester at Penn. If you're facing that particular challenge for the first time, don't fret! Just bring clothes that you ACTUALLY wear, because you don't have much space for clothes you "might need" in your dorm room (though girls: it never hurts to have a nice dress on hand). And besides, if you find that you need something you left at home, you can always get it sent to you from home or head down to Walnut Street or to the King of Prussia Mall (Bus 124 or 125 from just outside 30th Street Station) for a shopping trip.

If you're from a somewhat warmer climate than Philly (e.g. Florida or Southern California), be sure to pick up winter coats, scarves, hats, gloves, and sweaters. You'll start to need them toward the end of October, at the earliest. Sometimes we'll have warmer falls/early winters in Philly, but you never really know. And if you have sweaters (or any clothes) that require dry cleaning, don't worry, because there is a dry cleaning service just steps from the Quad.

Happy Packing!

Fingers Crossed....

With just under six weeks until I depart for Spain on August 26th, I'm already in a state of panic. Spain, of course, is one of those lovely countries that requires American students to acquire a visa if they plan on staying more than three months. So, after compiling all my documents and sending them home with my family, my best friend went to the Spanish Consulate to turn over the paperwork to apply for my visa.

My phone rang twenty minutes after her scheduled appointment with bad news: They want a letter from Spain that I simply don't have, and won't have until I arrive in Seville.

Needless to stay, I'm completely freaking out and have e-mailed everyone under the sun to find out if I can get this specific letter at all (normally the letters Penn provides you to take to the Consulate are accepted without such a fuss). Currently, no luck. But that's why my fingers are crossed.

Now I don't want to scare anyone from applying for a visa one day, it just so happens that the Spanish Consulate in Chicago is particularly difficult to work with. So for those of you future Spanish travelers -- apply for your visa in New York, which opens its doors to any student whose school is within in its jurisdiction (that includes Philadelphia, thus Penn).

In the meantime, I'm savoring my last few days down the shore before I head back home, and back to work. And if I have to go to that Consulate myself kicking and screaming for that document, I will be taking the train up to Chicago to get the job done.

Greetings from the Jersey Shore!

Yes, that's right, I've taken up residence down the Jersey shore until the end of this month. But don't think I've just been laying on the beach all summer! (I wish). I stuck around Philly for summer session I, took two classes (COMM 339 - Critical Perspectives in Journalism and MKTG 211 - Consumer Behavior, for those of you who are curious), and worked as a research assisant for a content analysis being done through the Annenberg School for Communication. Phew! That sounds like a lot on paper, but the great part about summers at Penn is that everything is much more laid back and relaxed than during the normal school year. Classes are much less stressing, and typically on the smaller side.

Another added bonus - summer sessions I and II are only 6 weeks! Classes feel like a blink when compared to the regular thirteen-week semesters we're used to at Penn. My COMM 339 class met only twice a week, and between having off for Memorial Day and reserving two classes for exams, we only met 9 times! Marketing met four days a week, but classes were very informal and the discussions were usually about fun topics.

But now that's all behind me! I've got another two weeks of sun and sand before I head back to my job at home. Then before I know it, I'll be flying off to Spain for the fall semester. :-)

And I'd like to add that there are only 10 days until Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows!

The Joy of Studying

There are April days in Philadelphia so nice that studying is physically impossible. The days where you can see people grilling outside and sunning themselves on rooftops. And then there are days like today, when the fog cuts visibility in half and not a soul can be seen outside. I prefer these days during finals though, because studying is ... vital.

Which brings up the question of how to study, and where. A lot of students (my roommates included) LOVE the basement of Van Pelt - it's open 24 hours and has Mark's Cafe with coffee and food to keep you going. I am not one of those people. I tried it once and only lasted about 2 hours. There was too much nervous study energy floating around for me to just chill out and punch out my paper. Though my roommates say that same energy motivates them to keep their head down and get to work.

So I'm normally a study-in-my-room kind of gal. Until I had the crazy 48 hours of just a week ago when a combined 35 pages of brilliance were due back to back to back. To get it all done, I found the upstairs study carrels of Van Pelt tucked at the end of each row of stacks. And I loved it. You can't see anyone, they can't see you, and you get vertigo if you look down the row for too long, so you just keep your head down and get your work down. It was near bliss.

But this week I've returned to my dependable desk in my Harrison room. And with this fog, I can't even see planes taking off and landing to distract me.