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 ;-)