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.

Time flies when you're...writing papers

Most students love the last week of class. I usually count myself as a member of this group - most work is typically done by this point, aside from a random "midterm" or final paper assignment.

But oh no, not this semester. Of my five classes, four have either a paper or a test due or administered in the last two day. Translation: Late nights, grumpiness, and oodles of stress.

Now don't get me wrong, I don't expect to have an easy time all the time; but this week has just been particularly heinous between designing a children's media product (a television series), critiquing a book about divorce, theorizing about a media effect, and studying the last two hundred years of Spanish and Latin American history.

Yet there is a glimmer of hope on the horizon, and that beacon is 1 p.m. Friday afternoon. 1 p.m. Friday afternoon - when everything is handed in, and all that is left is reading days aka "let's relax before we start studying again." Many universities implement "dead week" before finals, where classes are still held but no work nor test is assigned. Unfortunately, our last week of classes here at Penn is anything but dead. Yet we get reading days - idyllic time spent watching every movie you ever thought to rent in the semester or strolling by the riverfront or just laying outside in the grass. So while we Penn students work harder and harder as the semester wanes, the University gives us a mini-holiday before finals. Thank you, Penn.

My reading days for Spring 2007 include a formal dinner/dance aboard the Spirit of Philadelphia and a trip to see Beauty and the Beast in New York City, the best birthday present my roommates could ever, ever give me. Oh, and my parents will be in too, so I won't have to worry about doing homework ahead of time or after I get back from bouncing around with them.

Relaxation will have never felt so good.

You still haven't made up your mind?!

First off, congratulations on your acceptance to Penn! Now, while I know that many of you have already decided that UPenn ’11 will proudly grace your Facebook profile, many of you are probably (still) unsure of what school you will prominently display to the world. So I’ve compiled a list of why you should (and should not) pick Penn to help you fence-sitters out, because before you know it, May 1^st will be upon us. Here goes:

You should pick Penn because:

1. Our basketball team consistently wins the Ivy League. That’s a raw, undeniable piece of glory that simply can not be found at any other school. No one else even stands a chance. And so what if we also consistently lose the first game of March Madness? At least we get there!
2. Mask and Wig is the funniest act in town (and by town, I mean the entire East Coast). Twenty guys dressing in drag, singing their own tunes, and tap dancing their own choreography? Yes, please and thank you.
3. We have a gigantic button in the middle of our campus. Now I don’t know about you, but nothing brightens my day more than wondering exactly what Ben Franklin ate to send that button flying across College Green.
4. Ben Franklin was a demi-god. He was the talk of the United States in his day! With Declarations and electricity and bifocals, why not add Penn to the list of things Franklin has contributed to your life?
5. We’re not Princeton. ‘Nuff said.

But, Penn might be a bad choice for you if:

1. You do not want to learn from world-class and nationally known faculty. If you prefer to learn economics from the hobo on the side of the street, be my guest. Personally, I like to hear about how my history professor protested apartheid in South Africa with Paul Newman.
2. You want to be bored for the next four years of your life. While there is always, always, always something to do in Philadelphia or on campus, I could understand if that were too stressful for you. Some people just don’t like a cappella concerts, dinners downtown, or large-scale charity events. Stick to quiet, boring, middle-of-nowhere campuses then.
3. You hate history and pop culture. Penn is not only the first university in the United States, but also boasts the first medical school, psychology department, computer, student union, two-tiered stadium, collegiate school of business, university museum, and woman president of a university. So if you want to go to one of the hundreds of copycat schools, just remember where it all started.
4. You want your curriculum laid out for you. Here at Penn, you have thousands of courses to choose from; no two students have the same exact education, even within the same major department. Then again, if you want avoid the fun of scrambling to narrow your 20 class choices down to five or six the night before registration closes, avoid Penn – we give you too much freedom
5. You bleed orange and black.

As this is my first blogging experience, I encourage you wonderful readers to comment and make suggestions. In doing so, we solve two problems: First, I dish out the information you want to hear; and second, I don't get writer's block :-)


I think that sums it up. And so, my first blog ends with a note of good luck. Happy deciding, and I hope you’ll be greeting Penn in August, it’s waiting for you. (I, on the other hand, will miss your freshman fall due to my much-anticipated semester abroad in Seville, Spain. But more on that to come.)