The Daily Pennsylvanian is a student-run nonprofit.

Please support us by disabling your ad blocker on our site.

Opinion Columns

09/24/10 2:47am

Penn Name | Time off for all faiths

In a school that prides itself on being diverse and accepting, I feel that not granting the whole student body time off for major religious holidays — such as Good Friday, Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Eid ul-Fitr and Eid ul-Adha — could be problematic.
09/23/10 4:09am

Truth Be Told | Lessons learned from dead bodies

Now that I've dissected my first cadaver, I realize that anatomy is a crash course in treading a fine line between embracing and restraining your own humanity.
09/23/10 3:43am

Smart Alec | Change the drinking culture

At Penn, it seems no party is complete without someone “blacking out” because of binge drinking. Yet our binge-drinking culture is not a foregone conclusion — it can, and should, change.
09/22/10 4:12am

Ad-Libs | In defense of Du Bois College House

Du Bois offers a unique living experience other houses cannot rival, and the benefits of living there outweigh the drawbacks.
09/22/10 4:06am

Say Anything | No freshman girls allowed

There is a rule that states that freshman women are not allowed to attend any fall semester sorority events involving alcohol. I hate this rule.
09/21/10 3:46am

Southern Comfort | Narrowing the service gap

Nestled in the Penn bubble, we know a lot about the strategic hopscotch that starts wars, but we know less and less about the college-aged kids we send to fight them.
09/21/10 3:41am

Berry Nice | Hold the meat, sometimes

“Weekday vegetarianism,” which involves choosing to forgo meat some of the time, is a movement that everyone can understand regardless of their views on animal rights.
09/20/10 3:51am

Wiki-Pedia | Multiple degrees, multiple difficulties

There are a select few students who seem so sure of what they want to do that they need two degrees to do it. But their tightly packed semesters and prohibitive requirements leave little room for anything else.
09/20/10 3:46am

The Sooner, The Better | (Not) rocking the suburbs

In the 2010 midterm elections, treating every Pennsylvania voter equally is a strategic mistake. For Penn’s Democratic students, time should be spent not in West Philly, but just outside the city limits.
09/17/10 3:17am

Sir Lance-A-Lot | Down with sector requirements

Distribution requirements were meant to give students a thought-provoking and broad education, but most of the red tape surrounding them keeps students from researching things they actually enjoy.
09/17/10 3:02am

Penn Name | Overweight is underrated

Does being thin always correlate with good health, and vise versa? When it comes to issues of weight, things may not be as black and white as they seem.
09/16/10 4:45am

Smart Alec | Seniors for Penn, not The Penn Fund

I cannot donate to Penn when the most publicized reasons to do so consist of empty rhetoric and getting free beer come Hey Day.
09/16/10 4:40am

Scientifically Blonde | Texting as an addiction is OMG nutz

Whether over-texting is pathological or not, if over-texting is your major vice, consider yourself in good shape. I’d rather be addicted to texting than a whole lot of other things.
09/15/10 4:36am

Amanda Please | No need for parking wars

Last winter, my family barely made it out of the city with our dignity, much less our car. The Philadelphia Parking Authority, with its strict regulations, is to blame.
09/15/10 4:31am

Ad-Libs | Our generation gets a bad rap

Generation Y will be a generation to remember. The world is ours for the losing, or for the taking. But here’s me betting on the latter.
09/14/10 3:35am

Ryu's Clues | TFA: more than cocktail party stories

For Teach for America alumni who leave the education field, what they learn during the two years can still make a difference.
09/14/10 3:32am

Berry Nice | Worth it despite the mice

Despite the supposed inconvenience of having to cook my own meals, sort my own mail and call my own plumber when need be, moving off campus was one of the best decisions I ever made.
09/13/10 3:07am

Cosmopoli-Tanvi | Around the world in a post-grad gap year

Penn students are missing out on the “gap year” in its truest form: soul-searching during exciting travels, meeting best friends and crazies alike and having free-wheeling and carefree adventures.
09/13/10 3:00am

The Sooner, The Better | #Hoping for real dialogue

Twitter’s rules of engagement oversimplify our political discourse. When it comes to dialogue on challenging and complicated issues, Twitter falls flat.
09/10/10 2:56am

Hassall-free Friday | Confessions of a non-voter

Show me that not expressing my preferences can cost me, and that voting can bring me benefits, and I’ll carve out some time to do so.

PennConnects