Category Archives: Matthew G.

Author: Matt G., W’14

Finals are over; alumni weekend completed; graduation finished; so what’s next?

This thing they call “summer vacation.”

Summer vacation used to be exactly that: vacation. During the summer when I was a kid, we would spend summers hanging out with friends, swimming, watching time slip by. But when college hit, that all changed. Now, the word “vacation” has become a trick, a lie really. Summer is no longer for lying around, but rather it’s the time for a workplace change. Instead of sitting in a classroom taking notes, or studying in a library, we are on computers in offices or conducting experiments in labs. Or in my case, removing all the drywall in my home (internship doesn’t start for another couple weeks and my mom has put me to work).

Even though this is my first “college summer,” I think that I’m starting to understand why it’s so important to have a break from school. On top of the work experience and resume building, it reminds me of what I’m going to have to face in the real world. No matter how demanding school becomes, at the end of the day, it is still fun. These next three years will be the only three years for a long time, that I will be able to make mistakes without worry of being fired from a job.

But with all that said, the cliche still holds true at Penn: here, students work hard and play harder. No matter where we’re working, I’m sure we’ll all find a way to have a good time and…and somehow, to still have our summer vacation.

What I'm Doing for Summer Vacation

Author: Matt Gould, W’14

Whenever I have the opportunity to sit down with somebody new I ask them, “What do you want to accomplish while at Penn?”

I have a lot of faith in this question. It is tricky and frankly, I judge people based on their response.  In my eyes, there are multiple ways to answer the question correctly, there is only one to answer it incorrectly.

Way too often, people tell me that during their time at Penn, they hope to become knowledgeable in insert subject here.  Although I agree that at the end of our four years, we should have worked to earn a diploma, I feel that every student who believes their college experience is about that diploma is selling himself or herself short.

It is students like Megan Schoenberg and Genevieve Deutch who wanted something of their own and founded their own fraternity, Alpha Delta Phi Society at Penn or students like Chadwick Prichard who, outside of the classroom, designed his own Facebook app.

When I become a Penn alumnus, I don’t want to reminisce about what I learned in my finance courses, but rather I want to be able to look back and say, “I can’t believe I did that!” Knowledge and experience—that’s what makes a Penn education great.

P.S. My experiences at Penn includes cheering on our athletic teams to victory as the Quaker mascot…