Opinion Columns
Bridget Yu | Don’t take a gap year during the pandemic
Don’t take a gap year out of fear or discomfort with the chaotic state of the world. It’s our new normal and will continue to be in the foreseeable future.
Lark Yan | Incoming first years, a gap year is in your best interest
Since incoming college first years are at a key transition stage of their lives, they should highly consider taking a gap semester given their inability to receive a complete college experience under present circumstances.
Jessica Gooding | Professors, stop using microaggressions with students
Microaggressions are uncomfortable, harmful, and demeaning for students because they ultimately influence a student’s perception of their ability to excel, feel comfortable and be accepted within the Penn community.
Varun Saraswathula | Doctors are facing a silent mental health crisis — and they need help
Dr. Lorna Breen’s passing reignited a conversation surrounding well-being among physicians, but struggles with mental health often begin more than a decade before medicine itself.
Jessica Gooding | Paying PILOTs will save lives
Poverty is a problem in Philadelphia. Here, one in four residents live below the poverty line, but this reality is not apparent every day on Locust Walk.
Isami McCowan | Why aren’t we talking about the crisis in Yemen?
The crisis in Yemen, already the poorest country in the North African and Middle East regions, can be traced back to 2011.
Letter from the President | Rethinking, not shrinking: Our print plan for the fall semester
We will be printing the DP this semester, with 34th Street Magazine as an insert, once a week on Thursdays.
Sophia DuRose | Online classes aren’t inherently worse
Online learning comes with side effects, as does every classroom.
Agatha Advincula | We need to follow Penn’s Student Campus Compact
Based on the idea that we are all responsible enough to look out for each other, the Student Campus Compact places the onus on us to make the safest choices.
Alfredo Praticò | Bring back the Pass/Fail option
Standard grading is designed for normal times, and these are not normal times.
Bridget Yu | The reality of eating disorders during quarantine
It’s important that we discuss the reality of eating disorders during quarantine, along with specific, concrete approaches to best support our loved ones. Here are seven tips.
Urooba Abid | Ivy League admissions are structurally racist
While Ivy League universities boast their students as the nation's most accomplished, public universities are actually accomplishing much more in terms of achieving equity.
Jessica Gooding | Words matter
Harvard graduate Claira Janover's viral Tik Tok featuring imagery attached to inflicting brutal harm is not acceptable.
Varun Saraswathula | What it means to be an American today
Personal liberty is the argument used to hide the crux of the issue, which is that individuals unwilling to wear masks simply don’t value the lives of others around them as much as they value their own.
Stephanie Yoon | Students returning in fall should take a COVID-19 online orientation
The online orientation should list how the virus spreads, preventative measures, and the consequences when breaking the Student Campus Compact.
Jessica Gooding | Penn made the wrong decision. Don’t come back to campus.
With no vaccine or treatment in sight, we are lagging in resources to keep up with our accustomed pace. Members of the Penn community will inevitably get sick.
Angelina Eimannsberger | Penn, listen to grad students when planning the fall semester
As graduate students, we experience the ongoing COVID-19 crisis both as students and as teachers.
Sophia DuRose | Difficult family conversations are a part of change
We are all complicit in allowing systemic racism to remain alive if we do not do the necessary, dirty work of calling out microaggressions, dismantling harmful generalizations, and ridding our personal conversations of stereotypes.
Lark Yan | Penn made the right decision, now can it follow through?
Penn is prioritizing the health of its community by announcing stringent tracking and tracing measures, following the example of other nations who have effectively curbed the rampant spread of the virus by implementing such digital systems.