Category Archives: Academics

December 20, 2011 · 4:00 pm

To Sleep or Not to Sleep?

Christine Uyemera, SEAS ’13

As the end of the semester draws near, students have to make the ultimate decision: to sleep or not to sleep?

Finals week is the most stressful time for everyone (minus those few lucky freshmen or seniors who got away with taking only three classes, pass/fail classes, or classes that give the option to drop the final exam grade). Between projects, papers, gift-buying, hanging out with friends before going home, and the finals themselves, it often feels like there aren’t physically enough hours in the day to get everything done that we need to. How can we possibly make good grades and still be sane? What is the right combination of sleep and other things? There are three main approaches that three different types of students take to solving this equation:

1. Sleepless Sallys: One option that some  students consider is to give up as much sleep as possible to make time for everything else. This is normally manifested in multiple all-nighters, sometimes consecutive ones, with 1-2 hour “power naps” sprinkled into the schedule and taken only when absolutely necessary (typically these naps are involuntary). Sleepless Sallys can be found with a Vente Starbucks coffee at any given time. Although they might complain about their workload, friends of Sleepless Sallys can see it in their eyes. They have semi-permanent setups in Van Pelt/Houston Hall/ Huntsman and will probably be living there 20-24 hours of the day. A typical day for a Sleepless Sally begins at the library during either day or night and has no clear end, despite the so-called sunrise and sunset.

2. Balanced Bettys: Despite students’ constant insistence that they have no idea how so much work piled up, and there’s no way they could have ever gotten it all done before now, there are always students who actually started the project the day it was given out/read the chapters every week before lecture/followed the timeline for the research paper. At least enough to where Reading Days and Finals week is manageable. Finals week is truly no big deal at all to Balanced Bettys, who spend a scheduled, moderate 2-4 hours per day working or studying and are free to do their Christmas shopping in the mornings and go to end-of-semester BYOBs with their friends at night. Balanced Bettys are probably in the College, and will almost certainly protest that they are just as stressed and busy as anyone else.

 

3. Party Pats: Finally, there are the students who put immediate happiness before all else. Party Pats pull all-nighters in a different way. They wouldn’t be caught dead staying up late for schoolwork and spend ample time on their holiday shopping and end-of-the-year friend-visiting. They will spend a few hours here and there looking at course material when they can’t find anyone else to hang out with or they need a break from the TV show marathon they’ve been watching. However, the majority of any project-doing or exam-studying is done the night before or the day of. Party Pats can exists in either extreme academically: they will either make the A+ on the exam regardless of the amount of time spent studying or fail the class completely. Either way, Party Pats live by the phrases “oh ,well,” and “whatever…”

All three of the these student types have their pros and cons. The choice is really dependent on what kind of student you’ve been all semester, your personal expectations, and how much pressure you can take before going insane. Freshmen will be struggling to decide who they are going to be while upperclassmen have known from day one of finals week. Regardless, come December 22nd, it will ALL be over and we students can go into hibernation mode for a few weeks before starting all over again.

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December 14, 2011 · 6:58 pm

In the Final Stretch

Author: Emily Siegel

Today marks the first day of finals for students.  Whether it’s cramming for a test or putting the final touches on a paper, or (let’s be honest), just starting it, this week marks a stressful time of year for them.  It has many of us here in the alumni office reflecting on our own college finals experiences and thinking about the crazy things we used to do to cope during this stressful time.

Food was the most obvious theme.  Everyone had memories of either junk food, delicious food, or lack of food during finals.  Drew, C’09, always started out her finals’ days by making the trek out to FroGro to stock up on, in her words, “an exuberant amount of snacks.”  Her favorites included Frosted Mini Wheats, fruit snacks, and granola bars.  Lex, C’07, opted for food of the delivery kind…preferably Greek Lady who would drop off directly to the library.  Casey, C’95, was lacking in food during finals…those were the years the library banned food and any attempt to bring it in was often foiled by the confiscating library ladies – it was tough being a student in the 90s!

Besides food, space seemed to be the other important factor in getting through finals.  While Drew and Lex opted for the library (Drew being a member of the “Rosenparty” and Lex preferring the 5th floor music section), like me, many others avoided the library altogether.

Casey was always on the quest for the perfect studying place, but after hours of searching, often returned home defeated; having still not studied.  Leigh-Ann preferred the floor in her apartment, opting to remain comfortable in her pajamas for as long as possible.  Mari, GSE ’12, our grad student, is a bit of a wanderer these days as she seeks out space. While the library has been a great refuge for a majority of the year, it is now everyone else’s preferred stomping grounds, making it much less appealing to her.  I preferred the camp of switching up space as often as possible, thinking it somehow kept my brain fresh.

And you can’t forget the distractions – no one can possibly study and write papers 24/7 without a little unwinding time!  Lynn, C’93, found refuge in the Shakespeare Garden just outside of Fisher Fine Arts (Furness Building).  With benches surrounded by trees and quotes of Shakespeare on the stepping stones, it was a very calming place and offered some solitude from the crowded library.  Leigh-Ann preferred to procrastinate from studying by cleaning her apartment with her roommates.  Her apartment was never as clean as it was during finals – everyone knows cleaning is way more fun than studying!  And then there’s Mari, who unwinds by reading celeb magazines, thinking about how much more glamorous that life would be than the one of a final’s student.

Our newest addition to the office, Liz, just might take the cake with distractions.  In addition to running outside of the library and doing jumping jacks and cartwheels, she would take frequent trips to the bathroom and make faces in the mirror attempting to make herself laugh.  After that, she’d slather on some suntan lotion and head back to her corner of the library, the scent reminding her that better days were ahead!

And that truly is the hope for our students today – that better days are ahead.  Until then, embrace finals!  Stays focused, well fed and hydrated, and remember to infuse some distractions into your day.  Finals don’t last forever; eventually you get a job and have different kinds of deadlines.

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December 8, 2011 · 7:37 pm

On the Road Again with Engaging Minds in New York

Author: Jason Strohl

On Friday, December 3, I had the pleasure of joining over 400 alumni at the most recent Engaging Minds event at Cipriani 42nd Street in New York City. Four of Penn’s brightest professors engaged the audience in discussions ranging from how corporations benefit from data mining our digital identities to the attempt to control the ever-growing cost of healthcare in the United States to a quiz designed to measure confidence levels in decision-making.  If you were unable to attend, videos of each of the lectures are available on the Making History website, along with additional information about each of the speakers. Also, check out the Engaging Minds page for a preview of events coming to San Francisco and Los Angeles in early 2012. We hope to see you there!

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November 10, 2011 · 4:46 pm

I Remember…Music Class

Author: Elizabeth Kimmelman-Schwartz, C’04

Today, I got an email from the Philadelphia Orchestra (nerd alert – I’m on their mailing list!) advertising a visiting orchestra coming to town and the fact that they’d be playing an all-Beethoven program, including my two favorite symphonies – Eroica and the 5th.  I had a major, all-out nerd attack.  In the span of two minutes, I called my husband, made sure that he was on board with the ticket purchase, ordered us two seats (after memorizing the seating layout in the Kimmel Center, including doing some Google image searches, to make sure the seats were acceptable), and exuberantly ran into another employee’s office telling her about my AMAZING purchase.   Let’s just say that her reaction did not come close to matching my level of enthusiasm.  I’m a classical music nut and I’m proud of it!  I owe almost all of this love to the University of Pennsylvania’ s Department of Music.

As a freshman at Penn, I signed up for a first year seminar called “History of the Symphony.”  I was intrigued by the title and thought it might be a good chance to learn something new.  I sang in select choirs all through high school and was in the shows, plus I enjoyed musical things like Broadway.  My dad is a classical music fan, and I’d always have to listen to classical music in his car when he’d drive me places.  He give me the choice of riding with no music and actually…gasp…talking, or listening to classical music and, to me, the choice was clear.  I’d pretend to hate it, but deep down, I thought it was beautiful.  I liked how listening to classical music stirred my imagination, painted a mood for me, and let me be peaceful and reflective.  I didn’t get to take any classes about classical music in high school, so when I got to Penn, it made sense to me to learn more about it.  I loved my symphony class and before I graduated I took two more music classes, including a music history course and a course entirely on Beethoven.

I’ve talked in this blog before about how Penn is very pre-professional and how I was constantly worried that I didn’t know what I was going to do for the rest of my life.  That’s true – except for the time I spent in music class.  In music class, my fears about what would happen to me, my worries that what I was learning wasn’t applicable to the real world at all, faded away.  I would watch my professor map out a symphony, feeling like I was learning a secret, beautiful code.  I learned what motivated Beethoven to write such deeply meaningful pieces.  I spent hours in the music library, learning how to identify parts of the symphony like the introduction, recapitulation, bridge and coda.  Soon, I was mapping symphonies on my own.  By the end of my classes, I could hear a few seconds of any Beethoven symphony, at any point, and correctly name it.  It was amazing.  I didn’t care how or when I used this knowledge, but for one of the only times in my life I was learning for the joy of learning.  And I was happy.

I didn’t become a music major or even a minor.  I never worked for a symphony or played for one.  But what I gained from my three music classes was so valuable.  I gained a love and knowledge of a true art form, which I will carry with me throughout my entire life.  I learned the power of music to inspire true creativity and emotion.  In learning this, I really think I became a better, more well-rounded person.  When it comes down to it, I think that’s what a good college education should be about.

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October 5, 2011 · 9:36 am

Technology: A Student’s Worst Enemy

Author: John Mosley, C’14

Each morning, as I stand in the shower or eat breakfast, I mentally schedule out my day of work and school. I know that from 9 to 5 I will either be attending class or doing my Work-Study at the Sweeten Alumni House. Usually, at 5 PM,  I eat dinner. Every day, I tell myself that after dinner, I will work more diligently than ever before on studying and getting homework done. And, once the meal is over, I pace confidently to my room, knowing that the unprecedented amount of work about to be done  will consequently make my life easier in the future. I open my door with purpose to find my laptop computer sitting innocuously on my desk. I know that this will be an important tool in typing my essays and printing out articles to study for my classes. Little do I know how many distractions await me on this machine.

…Ok,  I lied. I know how many distractions are on my computer. I know about YouTube, Facebook, Netflix, and all the innumerable other websites that will keep me busy for hours on end while my schoolbooks collect dust in my book bag. But I just can’t help it! That is the biggest problem with students of my generation. We have all been spoiled with the greatest and most entertaining technologies the world has ever known for our entire lives, and now, not even college can break our addiction. So, within 30 seconds, my resolve is gone and my homework is relegated to the late hours of the night, shearing off hours of much-needed sleep.

After an hour or so on the Internet, I often decide that my behavior is unacceptable. I decide to sit on my bed, where my laptop cannot seduce me and I can get some real, honest-to-goodness work done. Just as I open a textbook, a thought occurs to me: I should really text my mom and let her know about my day. She probably misses me. Then, taking my phone out, I realize how many great games I have on it! I could spend hours smashing things and outrunning enemies on my phone! This seems like a great way to spend some time. After all, I’ve had a long day of classes and work, so I’ve earned this. I’ll talk to mom tomorrow, anyway.

See what happened there? I’m surrounded. Technology dictates my actions in my free time. Yes, I always get my work done on time, but at what cost? Hours of sleep are lost because of my lack of focus, and I know for a fact that I am in the majority of college students. Technological advances in entertainment have destroyed our focus and work ethic. This is our eternal struggle. Seems trivial in a world full of real problems…

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September 21, 2011 · 2:13 pm

Why I Am Here

Author: Jonathan Cousins, SEAS’14

Whenever I meet someone new, one of the first questions that come up is ‘Where do you go to school?’  Upon revealing that I go to Penn, I get a variety of responses, from the sadly common ‘Penn State?’ to ‘That’s a long way from California.’  But the question that sticks in my mind is this: ‘What made you choose Penn?’  Sometimes, when I am basking in the lack-of-humidity that is a California summer, I wonder the same thing myself.  There are times, mostly when the weather is poor, when I wonder why I didn’t choose the ocean views of UCSD.  But when I got back to campus, I remembered why.

One clear reason was sports.  When I got here I had no idea how much history there was in the Penn Athletics community.  But upon entering the oldest two-tiered football stadium in the country, and the Cathedral of College Basketball, I was sold.  And over the summer, I missed Penn sports.  There were times when I just wanted to walk into the Palestra, wait for the band and the basketball team, and watch a game.

But if it was the sports that brought me back, it was the school and community that kept me here.  When I got back early to be an OPA! (Orientation Peer Advisor) for incoming Mechanical Engineers, I got to see all my old friends again, and meet some new ones.  Instantly I fell back into a comfortable place socially – and I realized just how much I had missed my friends over the summer.  And when classes started I remembered that being a Mechanical Engineer at Penn is a lot of fun.  In one day last week I both cut metal and flew paper airplanes – and these were both part of classes!  Even in a more theoretical physics class, we took pictures of structures and got to talk about what makes them stand up and stay up.  I didn’t realize how many metal beams Franklin Field had until I went and took a picture of it.

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August 25, 2011 · 6:53 pm

The Secret Life of a Penn PhD Student

Author: Elise Betz

I have had the privilege and horror of getting an intimate look inside the life of a Penn PhD student. It is nothing like the leisurely, fun life of a Penn undergrad. There is no Spring Fling, Hey Day or happy hours at Smoke’s.  It consumes you pretty much 24 hours a day for 4, 5, 6, sometimes even 7 years. From my perspective, this is how I have interpreted the experience:  Penn does an excellent job of wooing you into the program because our PhD students are the best and brightest in the world and we are competing with some pretty serious schools.

The students come to Penn to work closely with a faculty member who is world-class in their field.  It’s all sunshine and roses until classes begin, then the reality hits – it’s just not possible to read eleven scholarly books every week or write a research proposal in one semester. The class, entitled “Research Methods,” can bring even the most scholarly scholars to tears. More tears and several classes later, it’s time for the Qualifying Exams. These tests determine whether you can continue in the program or get dropped to go back to the real world in shame. Three full days of writing on topics that you can only try to predict.

This preparation period is when you go “underground” and hunker down with towers of books, articles, charts, notes, videos, gallons of coffee and a variety of sweet and savory snacks. There is a table in the library that is yours – because you are there 14 hours a day.

The PhD students will tell you that the day they begin Qualifying Exams, is the smartest day of their life – they will never be that smart again.   Then there is the dissertation – PhD insiders call it a “journal article on steroids.”Days are spent trolling coffee shops for peaceful places and productive nooks. Oh, and by the way, Penn PhD students are teaching classes too.  I am astounded and amazed by the self-discipline of these brilliant creatures.

PhD students are told there is an easy time management formula you can follow, which varies somewhat by institution and discipline, but proves fairly accurate across the board. It typically looks something like this: you should be spending 75% of your time and effort on research, 50% on teaching, and 40% on classes. The bad news, of course, is that the math doesn’t add up. That becomes the biggest problem – time.

I am in awe of the Penn Ph D students. They are creative, driven, and fun. They are also the future leaders of academia.  I will end with what I have learned NOT to ask PhD students:

  1. How’s the dissertation going?
  2. When do you plan to get real job?
  3. Of what practical importance is your research?
  4. Have you published yet?
  5. So, does this mean you won’t be a “real” doctor?
  6. When do you finish?

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August 17, 2011 · 6:16 pm

Falling for Fall

Author: Emily Siegel

I love fall. I love the changing colors and the crisp nights.  Not only that, but fall represents a new year of possibility.  Sure, technically the new year begins in January, but every September since I started kindergarten, the beginning of a school year has brought with it a tickling sense of possibility; the chance to start fresh.  First off, there’s the delight in new school supplies. Out with the worn-down crayons and colored pencils, and in with the pointy-sharp array of the latest trend in colors.  In anticipation, I practically spent all summer debating what design would my Trapper Keeper have this year… bunnies or hearts or horses!?!?!?  Oh, the possibilities!  SUCH. A. DILEMMA.   Most often, I picked horses.

And then, there’s also back to school shopping for clothes and imagining the first day of classes, showing up in a brand new outfit—new shoes, new haircut, new outlook. And the curiosity about my classes and schedule—what my teachers would be like, who I’d be sitting next to in English, if any of my friends would have lunch period with me.  Fall has always seemed like the time for the greatest potential. You don’t know exactly how the year will go, but the chance to start fresh feels like each September brings a new beginning.

One of the things I love most about working on a college campus is that this same anticipation is palatable at the start of every semester.  Right now, prospective students are flooding the campus, with wide-eyes as they learn about and explore the university, trying to picture what their life might look like if they end up studying at Penn.  The excitement in their eyes reminds me of my own college search as I explored different schools and pondered where I might spend those life-changing four years.

As current Penn students slowly trickle back to campus, you can sense their excitement about the upcoming year too – new classes, new friends, new opportunities. The feeling is infectious.

In fact, it’s so contagious that I found myself perusing Penn’s course catalog and dreaming about what class (or classes) I could take this year. Do I sign up for something practical and related to my career like “History of American Higher Education?” Or, do I refine my Spanish speaking-skills by taking “Advanced Conversation?” Or, do I choose something out-of-the-box like “Furniture Design” and learn how to make the ottoman that I’ve been searching for over the last year?  So many options!

I think it’s precisely this sense of the many possibilities that makes this season so exciting. I’d love to know how others are thinking and feeling about the back-to-school aura on campus.  What possibilities of the coming season are you most excited about? And, perhaps most importantly, what kind of Trapper Keeper did you choose?

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August 11, 2011 · 2:58 pm

Safety On-Campus

Author: Lex Ruby-Howe, C’07

With New Student Orientation (NSO) now just three weeks away, the campus is starting to busy with preparations for the hive of activities that welcome new and returning students to Penn’s academic and social life.

Last night, representatives from the hubs and centers across campus headed to Bodek Lounge to present their wares to the 100 or so pre-freshman program (PennCAP) students, in a hope to orient them to the soon-to-be-alive campus and all it has to offer.

While the excitement of joining their 2400 peers at NSO looms, some of those students will, after a summer of relative freedom, be stepping into a somewhat restrictive environment.

The City of Philadelphia has experienced several spontaneous, and somewhat destructive, flash mobs this summer, and is taking action to ebb the flow of youth to the streets. These mobs have seen hundreds of young folks taking to the streets, and in some instances causing damage to businesses and storefronts.

The Mayor’s Office is enforcing a pre-existing city-wide curfew. The curfew will be most heavily implemented (and policed) in Center City and University City. Details of the curfew can be found here –but minors under the age of 18 must be inside from 9 PM-6 AM every day, or accompanied by an adult 21 or over.

Mayor Nutter Presenting the New Curfew Plan

After a presentation by a detective from Penn’s Department of Public Safety at the resource fair last night, the PennCAP students became concerned they’d be stopped or face punishment when walking back from class each evening. Penn’s Divison of Public Safety is making sure any individuals under 18 who are Penn affiliated have as much information about the curfew as possible, and act responsibly if they are challenged. They are taking measures to ensure students always carry identification, and if stopped suggest the students mention their participation in the PennCAP program and should not face any problems.

The campus community should be glad that safety is of the utmost priority. The students will no doubt benefit from the actions the City of Philadelphia is taking to make sure our their 2400 undergraduate students peers are safe come September too.

City of Philadelphia Curfew Map

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July 28, 2011 · 9:30 am

Summer in DC

Author: Dan Bernick, SAS’14

Is it really almost August?  It seems like only a few weeks ago I arrived in DC and began interning at the White House Council for Community Solutions.  I’ve discovered that the old adage is really true. Time does fly when you’re having fun…And this seems especially so these past few months.

This summer has been perfect.  I met new people, made amazing connections, ate breakfast with my Senator, and even went bowling at the White House (I scored a 93 – harder than it looks!).  Better than all of that, I had a fantastic internship.

Having a great boss makes all the difference, especially when she is intently focused on mentoring and exemplifies strong leadership.  The team I work on was small and everyone (including the interns) has been given opportunities to contribute substantively.  My team has been a fun group, and we managed to both work hard and find time to laugh.

I’m determined to make the most of the few weeks left before I return to Philadelphia and start my sophomore year at Penn. I am doing everything I can to make the most of this experience.  Including making sure I take plenty of photos…

Did I Mention that I Met Al Franken This Summer?

Despite his lifelong career as a comedian, I discovered that Al Franken takes his job very seriously. Still, when it came time for photos, he cracked a few jokes about symmetry (you will notice we are perfectly in the middle).

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