Opinion Columns
Alexa Rybicki | Take advantage of Penn’s global seminars
Penn makes it possible for students to have the opportunity to travel abroad without missing out on an entire semester at Penn.
Maeve Masterson | Oil refinery explosion reveals long-standing environmental injustice
Despite being just a few miles away, the thick smoke that continues to billow from the PES refinery poses a prescient and necessary reminder to most Penn students that the harmful effects of the nation’s highly emissive oil industry are real and ominously close to home.
Ilyse Reisman | Students should take advantage of Penn Walk
Penn students should not hesitate to use Penn Walk for reasons as simple as it is late and dark, they are lost, or they would like company.
James Morrison | Reconnect with your high school teachers
While no one has the greatest relationship with all of their old teachers, I would like to believe that for everyone, there was at least one teacher who made a positive and enduring impact on their life. To go back and say thank you is something so simple, but to them, it could mean the world.
Alex Silberzweig | Don’t let your parents determine your career path
There's a balance you need to strike: don't completely dismiss what your loved ones have to say, but don't change simply to fit their needs.
Alexa Rybicki | Penn students spend too much time staring at screens
At Penn, technology is so difficult to escape and comes with many risks and long-term effects on the eyes.
Ilyse Reisman | Penn dining’s conversion policy scams its students
While it is clear that the administration is trying to incentivize students to purchase a dining plan, there ways to do so without scamming them into losing money.
Maeve Masterson | Why metal straws are not enough to fight climate change
How long the sustainability trend will last is open to discretion and debate, and it is reasonable to believe that green consumption, which tricks us into thinking that buying or acting green is the full extent to which we can “do our part,” is holding back the sociocultural transformation that we need to move the needle.
James Morrison | Penn students deserve a break this summer
Summer break is the time where we are liberated to pursue that project that has no clear payoff, but is something we are passionate about, to read that book we’ve been putting off for months, or even just to curl up in bed and binge Netflix all day.
Ilyse Reisman | Incoming freshmen, please stop worrying about requirements
Now, as a rising sophomore, I have more certainty and security than I would have had if I had just focused on fulfilling every requirement for the College.
Senior Column by Camille Rapay | Making peace with my unknown
Sure, I have been cracking unemployment jokes all year to hide how embarrassed I am and to hopefully divert people from feeling any ounce of pity.
Senior Column by Alex Graves | A balancing act
Although the DP helped me avoid my problems, it also provided me with the resources to start acknowledging them.
Senior Column by Ananya Chandra | Embracing the awkwardness
Replaying the images from the last four years in my mind, there are many moments at Penn I don’t think I’ll ever forget (and many that are already forgotten). And for the most part, these moments aren’t the planned ones.
Senior Column by Alessandro Consuelos | On Class clownism
Class clownism goes beyond evoking a reaction.
Senior Column by William Snow | Why I never belonged at Penn
I just wish I had come here once these issues were addressed.
Senior Column by Cole Jacobson | Learn to embrace the tough times
When you think about why you’re upset about something, the bigger picture comes into play.
Senior Column by David Figurelli | A reflection
But as I come to the end of my college career, I’m hesitant to allow my perception of the past four years to be colored so negatively.
Senior Column by Sabrina Qiao | The “ What if” conundrum: leaving that mentality behind at graduation
I can’t live my life thinking that I’ll soon die. At a certain point I’m willing to suspend disbelief: to let myself think I have the capacity to live a healthy and ordinary — maybe, even, an extraordinary — life.
Senior Column by Ally Johnson | Stories worth retelling
The DP taught me how deeply fulfilling it can be to devote yourself to something important, even without the dangling carrot of external validation from grades and other “objective” measures of success we obsess over on this campus.