34th Street Magazine's "Toast" is a semi-weekly newsletter with the latest on Penn's campus culture and arts scene. Delivered Monday-Wednesday-Friday.
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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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Now though, for what feels like the first time, I’m not dragging my feet. I’m ready, heck, I’m excited to move on because I feel like I took a mighty swing at this college thing.
As much as The Daily Pennsylvanian Editorial Board believes our Quaker peers are the brightest in the Ivy League, we don’t think we’re that much smarter, and we’d appreciate some more time off.
The process of reflecting was valuable in that it was a cognizant deliberation and analysis of my mentality and actions. It helped me break out of habit and identity my faults, my ways of responding to situations, and the methods I can take to improve my lifestyle. It also helped raise self-acceptance as I pinpointed victories that I’ve achieved through hard work and compassion.
I will always have to choose between pursuing my passions in the United States of America and being with my family. If I choose one, I can’t have the other.