As a tour guide for the Kite and Key Society, I have probably said this line over a hundred times: “Most Penn students find new ways to get involved with the community just about every day.” I have delivered it to countless prospective students and their families, often without pausing to consider what it truly means. Though it may be a touch hyperbolic, the spirit behind it rings true and, in my perspective, has been the essence of the Penn experience. Over four years, I have found that most Penn students do continually take on new involvements. What we talk about far less, though, are the communities that we leave behind.
Involvement at Penn rarely entails accumulating 20 clubs by senior year. Rather, it is often a process of shuffling — picking up new roles as our interests evolve and quietly stepping away from others as we outgrow them. We cycle through groups, not out of disinterest but because growth is inevitable. The first-year student who showed up to the information session late and sat in the back row might just become the one standing at the front of the room, passing the torch, years later.
Penn communities are strong and tight-knit but inherently transient. The club you sought to join during your first few weeks as a first year likely still exists, but today, it is full of entirely different people. The Penn experience is thus shaped by people who pass through — and who shape their space before passing it on. We often talk about leadership but tend to overlook the quiet art of departure. Whether after sophomore year or in the final few days of your senior year, it comes time to bid farewell to the communities where we met our friends, spent days and nights, and slowly became versions of ourselves we had not yet imagined when we first arrived.
With each new involvement, Penn begins to feel smaller. The place that once felt overwhelming in size begins to shrink as you encounter familiar faces in unexpected corners of campus. I remember that when I first walked around Penn’s campus, I took note of the school’s most well-known buildings: College Hall, Van Pelt-Dietrich Library, Huntsman Hall. What I did not expect was that the majority of my time would end up not being spent in those buildings, but rather in the Kite and Key lounge in the Undergraduate Admissions Visitor Center, The Daily Pennsylvanian office, the Sheerr Pool in the Pottruck Health and Fitness Center, the Real Estate floor in Dinan Hall, and my fraternity’s chapter house.
Toward the end of my first semester at the DP, the incoming DP editor-in-chief asked if I would consider skipping the standard News leadership progression from general assignments reporter to beat reporter — and apply to become a news desk editor during my second semester. I hesitated — I thought I wasn’t nearly qualified and that applying would immediately lead to rejection. But he encouraged me to try.
Taking on the role of desk editor came with a lot of responsibility, but more importantly, it deepened my connection to the DP and introduced me to corners of the broader Penn community I might never have encountered — like the incredible team at Wellness at Penn, with whom I liaised weekly and interviewed for countless stories during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Looking back, that “yes” changed so much about my Penn experience. I have found that many Penn students, myself often included, are scared of rejection. But saying “yes” and simply trying are cornerstones of the college experience and are often what opens the doors to the most rewarding communities.
What is fascinating, though, is how small and interconnected our worlds become once you start saying “yes.” Every new club, class, or community adds a node to a web that you might not realize you are building, until in your final days at Penn, you see it all at once.
For me, one of those moments came at a friend’s a cappella show. Just before the final few songs, the president came onstage, per tradition, to thank the audience for coming to the show and shout out student groups in the audience, all of whom were there to support one of their friends onstage. The president shouted out a senior society, and a pocket of students stood up and cheered; a sorority, and a group on the other side of the theater jumped out of their seats and screamed; a consulting club; a club sport; a community service club. The list goes on. Everyone was there to support a friend, making the performance almost secondary. Sitting in the crowd, I truly realized: Penn is not just comprised of buildings or schools or departments. It is made up of dynamic, wide-ranging, and evolving communities. Together, they weave a vibrant tapestry of possibility and represent the true building blocks of the Penn experience.
As seniors, we prepare to leave the very communities that once felt new and uncertain — the ones that shaped our college experience in ways we never anticipated. That, to me, is what makes Penn so special: its ability to transform those who pass through it. I found community here not by knowing exactly where I belonged but by being open to new opportunities, taking risks, and finding ways to get involved — just about every day. What I will take with me from Penn is more than just the places I spent my time; it is the people I found there, the spaces we shaped together, and the powerful choice to say yes.
JONAH MILLER is a College senior studying philosophy, politics, and economics with a minor in urban real estate and development from Scarsdale, N.Y. He served as the politics desk editor on the 139th Internal Board and the science and health desk editor on the 138th Internal Board of The Daily Pennsylvanian. His email is jonahmi@sas.upenn.edu.
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