Laura Di Taranti | Learning to love a second year in the Quad

My name is Laura. I’m a junior in the College, and I live in Harrison with the two sweetest, most compassionate and supportive roommates Penn has to offer. My Outlook calendar is booked solid and I love a good Wawa run. For the most part, I consider myself a pretty normal Penn upperclassman — except that I lived in the Quad as a sophomore.

When many people consider living in the Quad beyond their freshman year, they are worried that their status as “normal Penn upperclassmen” would be compromised, especially if living in the Quad is explicitly their choice and not a result of the housing system screwing them over. But in the end, what matters most — more than the actual location itself — is the community. Because of the people I surrounded myself with in the Quad, and especially since I lived next door to another close sophomore friend, I didn’t feel that liv- ing there as an upperclassman made me a pariah at all.

I have never once regretted my decision. I love the Quad. I think it’s beautiful and cozy and convenient, even now that I live in Harrison. I chose to live in Harrison this year because there were people there that I cared about, and that was very much why I chose to live in the Quad as a sophomore. If I was where my friends were, I was happy, and my friends were in the Quad. This is because, even as a junior, I spend at least one night a week in the Quad as a MERT member.

I consider MERT very much my family. They made me feel at home when I felt lost and lonely at Penn, and even after freshman year, they loved me just because. I didn’t at- tach a strong stigma to living in the Quad as an upperclassmen because I saw non-RA upperclassmen there all the time. It was their — and is now my — home away from home.

I still sleep, eat and do homework in the Quad — I just also happen to do other things like sort equipment and respond to emergency calls.

The Quad was home because my family was there. Even now when I swipe in for a shift, I feel like I’m coming home every time.

Living in the Quad as a sophomore was not a big deal for me. A really good friend was right next door as an ally and support system and I had my MERT family down in Butcher. And let’s be real — there is no prettier dorm on campus.

Laura Di Taranti is a College junior from Wayne, N.J. She can be reached at laurajd@sas. upenn.edu.

Please note All comments are eligible for publication in The Daily Pennsylvanian.