Opinion Columns
Rachel del Valle | Get Real
Acting like a real person means, essentially, acting like a grown-up, an adult. But it doesn’t have the same, sad, unexciting connotation as those other terms.
Clarissa O'Conor | The Problem with Band-Aids
The discourse of empowerment makes us feel good about putting a Band-Aid on something while avoiding actually questioning our role in systematic racism, oppression and injustice.
Xavier Flory | The Price of Engagement
The ivory tower is often derided for how elitist and out of touch it is, but isolation from the world is a good and necessary thing.
JY Lee | Viva la vida
Every year that I have been at Penn, I have been chilled by the premature deaths in our University community.
Kurt Mitman | In government we trust?
More than an eighth of the undergraduates at Penn are international students and a significant fraction of the faculty is also foreign, meaning that under FISA, the government can track all their communications.
Morgan Jones | I support the troops
It is possible to divorce supporting the troops as a whole political entity from respecting the individuals who serve.Arielle Pardes | Can’t we all just dance?
The twerk used to be just a bouncy dance that came of age in a culture where people just wanted to get down and have a good time. It was good, clean fun.
Ola Osinaike | Pretentious Pennsylvania
Demeaning the Penn State name is just another identity crisis of our University.
Ryan Daniels | Closing the chasm
Many professionals in the corporate world spend plenty of time on public interest projects. Unfortunately, few students — including myself over the past few years — know about these people.
Arjun Gupta | Pilot
Rather than feeling more oriented to Penn, all of this has left me feeling a bit lost and confused.
Rachel del Valle | Hands off
In most situations, hugs are an inordinately intimate greeting. Sometimes I find myself in the grasp of a hug with someone who I’d never even had a one-on-one conversation with.
Caroline Brand | Girl meets world
Over the summer, transitioning from a loud college student to a perfectly postured professional was tough.
Kurt Mitman | Summer of our discontent
While the boycott has succeeded in raising awareness, the philosophy of it is misguided.
Robert Hsu | That’s so Asian
If other minorities can have developed characters — think Kurt from “Glee” or Sophia from “Orange is the New Black” — why can’t Asian-Americans?Arielle Pardes | The freshman fetish
Over the past week, as freshmen have become oriented (or disoriented) on campus, their sex appeal is at its peak.
Sindhuri Nandhakumar | Returning to Neverland
Originally, I wasn’t quite sure what I wanted from my time off, but now I realize that what I wanted was a renewed sense of hope and imagination. And I’m happy to say that I found that.
?Ali Kokot & Hayley Brooks | Share the toil, get more spoils
After New York summers spent at Nickelodeon and in the food business, we got a preview of how our two-brained efforts at Penn will soon translate into the professional world.
