The most rewarding job on campus

For those lucky few who have the opportunity of running The Daily Pennsylvanian, your Penn experience is like no one else's.

You go out to bars with your friends, and every time they say something to you, they start with "off the record." People start Facebook.com groups in your honor -- my favorite was "David Burrick sucks (and should resign or be fired)." (Thanks Stouffer College House.) And when you run controversial stories, you get messages from angry parents like this: "Call your attorney, pack your bags, and look for another school to transfer to, because you're in deep shit."

But at Penn, we perform an essential task of holding the administration accountable for its actions. And we're not the only ones in this fight to make student voices heard.

There's the Undergraduate Assembly, which passes proposals and meets regularly with high-ranking University officials. There are the various minority coalitions, which are extremely effective in lobbying the administration. There are students appointed to various trustees committees and councils.

And while these student leaders have their fair share of accomplishments, all too often, the best efforts of these students are simply ignored.

On Penn's campus, there are two types of student leaders: those that will tell administrators that what they're doing is wrong and those that will tell everyone else what administrators are doing wrong.

We at the DP are the latter, and because of that, Penn is a far better place.

It's unlikely that President Amy Gutmann would have dedicated millions of additional dollars toward the safety of undergraduate students earlier this year without the constant reports of crime in the newspaper.

It's fair to say that without the DP, a Penn student would have been punished for sexual harassment for taking a picture of two other students having sex pressed against a high-rise window. When the newspaper found out about this and made it public, the school quickly dropped its charges.

We say the things other student leaders just can't say -- like that certain officials should be fired or that you shouldn't give money to the senior-class gift drive.

And yet those who run the DP are rarely recognized for the work we do.

Remember, we're a totally independent company that's run by students. While others are taking naps between classes, we're working on investment batches and assembling an operating budget for the upcoming year. While others are out at Smoke's, we're checking grammar and writing stories.

It's the editors of the DP who are charged with the tremendous task of educating hundreds of Ivy League students in the practices of journalism, since this school has no such department.

And what do we get for all our hard work? Not college credit or even a minimum-wage salary, and there are certainly no journalism jobs set aside for us.

In fact, we're often blamed for lots of the problems on campus. When 14 students are mugged in one month, we're told that it's our fault for reporting it and scaring the community. When we call out administrators for doing a bad job, we're called brash.

And when the University honors its top student leaders every year, it's rare that someone from the DP is recognized.

But looking back on my four years at Penn, I wouldn't trade my experience at the DP for anything in the world.

Because, deep down, we all get a high unlike any other when we see everyone reading the paper in class (even if they're just doing the crossword puzzle). There's no greater feeling than seeing a struggling writer turn out a great story. Heck, most of us even like it when we get negative feedback from the administration -- usually, that means we're doing our job.

Indeed, running the DP may not make you the most liked person on campus, but it just might make you the happiest.

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