Freshman footsteps | In true Penn style, busy and loving it

She was sick and stuck in bed for a week, yet she still managed to get an A on her Calculus midterm. That’s what one might call a Penn heroine.

Jordan English, College freshman, has learned the ropes at Penn quite quickly.

Take the number of clubs she has joined, on top of her jobs at the Netter Center for Community Partnerships and Van Pelt Library. She’s involved in the Pre-Med Association, the Red Cross Society, the Biological Basis of Behavior society, the Active Minds Club and her favorite group, the Penn Judo Club.

At meetings of the Penn Judo Club meetings, “there were next to no girls,” which has made it difficult for her to attend meetings.

“If I don’t know someone who’s going to be there, then I get scared about having to do some of the things with males,” she wrote in an e-mail. “It’s not that it’s awkward or anything, but I’d still just like to be with people more on my level.”

Yet another group she hopes to join is the Penn Women’s Center. In light of the recent sexual assault issues on campus, she sent an e-mail to the Center “hoping to start a support group for victims of sexual assault,” she added.

This is an important issue to her because it is deeply personal — she too was a victim of rape when she was 16.

“I’ve put a lot of work into being happy and healthy again, and I know how hard it is for those who have experienced it,” English explained.

She added that extending a “helping, understanding hand to anyone who needs it” crosses age boundaries. “I may only be a freshman, but I really don’t think age matters with something like this.”

Socially, English feels she has found her place at Penn. She is “in love” with Hill College House because it has its own dining hall and “the people here are so great.”

Not only does she think the Hill House Dean Stephanie Weaver is “so nice,” but she also has bonded with her roommate — who has been “so sweet while I’ve been sick.”

English explained: “I’ll wake up coughing in the middle of the night, and she’ll sit up and ask if I’m okay and if I need anything.”

Another place English is feeling comfortable, in true Penn tradition, is the stacks at Van Pelt. “The people I work with are so nice and so much fun,” she wrote.

Academically, she finds herself working a bit less than her classmates, since she said she has “not too much of a workload, or maybe it’s supposed to be a lot of work and I just don’t do it.”

But that has not seemed to have much of an impact on her grades.

“I’m keeping up just fine in math, Spanish and my freshman seminar,” she said. Even Biology, “her biggest challenge,” is coming more easily to her and she is “really starting to improve, especially with my lab grades.”

With all that she has been up to in the past month and a half, it’s a good thing English is able to say: “I love being busy.”

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