Senior column by Alexandra Sternlicht | Graduation

Graduation is the biggest cliche. It’s paper plates in aisle one of Party City. It’s the “Keep Calm and Carry On” dorm room poster of momentous occasions. It’s the Murray Hill of post-grad addresses.

So here’s some advice you’ve heard before that I’ve regurgitated for you:

• It’s not the end, it’s only the beginning … 
• Oh, the places you’ll go …
• If you dream it …
• You are the future …

Graduation is vom-inducing like a night at Smokes, but that doesn’t mean I’m not crying when it ends. I have no idea what’s going to happen after graduation, but here’s what happened at Penn.

At Penn, I became more of myself.

I started Penn as an amoeba-like blob, and now I’m more of a Flubber (RIP Robin Williams). Still, I have much to learn before I stop being green goo and corporate America starts taking me seriously. But if there’s anything I’ve learned at Penn, it’s that it’ll happen — if you stay in Van Pelt long enough.

What I love about Penn is that we make plans to get dinner and we cancel them. We collaborate on Google Docs and are prohibited from going to sorority formal because we don’t have enough points so we have to carry the customized flask party favors to the venue.

We’re stuck in a windowless building with limited ventilation together (Huntsman, Addams, The Daily Pennsylvanian, etc.). And having spent our last four years in windowless spaces, we’ve been forced to confront the reality of our existence and that of our co-inhabitants. Without having to face the outside world, we’ve learned to be ourselves.

In my next life, in New York, I want to be as entrenched in my reality as I was — as I am — in Penn’s reality. It’s that thing you never think about — that you probably matter to the people at Penn and they matter to you. I want that — need that. I want to matter to my next world as I have to Penn.

To Penn: Never stop serving Van Pelt sushi. To Amy Gutmann: I will never forget that time we hugged.

Love and many double-cheek kisses,

Alex

ALEXANDRA STERNLICHT is a College senior form Newton, MA, majoring in English. She is a former highbrow editor, features editor and editor in chief for 34th Street. 

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