University of Pennsylvania

Introduction

The University of Pennsylvania was founded in 1740 by a consortium that included founding father Benjamin Franklin. The fourth institution of higher learning established in the colonies, Penn's history predates American independence. Widely regarded as the "pre-professional Ivy," Penn boasts undergraduate offerings across the academic spectrum alongside top graduate schools in Business, Law, Medicine, and others - twelve graduate schools in total. I am here to explore the undergraduate program and the undergraduate experience - and to hang out with my little brother.

I will spend three days on Penn's campus in West Philly where my brother is a current senior in the College of Arts and Sciences. He will be my guide over the course of the coming days. We've planned a lot. On my third day I will attend Penn's official information session and tour, and sit in on a class.

From 30th Street Station to the heart of Penn's campus is a quick 15-minute walk. It's a slightly overcast, grey Saturday morning, but the clouds are starting to peek through. We enter campus almost imperceptibly as urban setting transitions to university. Looking up, the broad expanse of College Hall signals that we have arrived.

Ivy Mystique

College Hall and the Fischer Fine Arts Library dominate Blanche Levy Park. These historic buildings convey the type of ivy mystique that students around the world dream of.

An Urban Campus

Let's face it. Penn is a world-class academic institution located in a gritty part of a gritty city.

Penn's academic reputation is long-earned and not in question. I am interested in how students live and learn here. How student life and learning interact, what type of student might thrive here - this is what's important. For now, the view from this reading chair is pretty darn fine.

Next up on our Saturday is a stop for lunch at Hummus Grill followed by a squash match at Penn's brand new squash facility. I'm excited to visit the freshest squash courts in the world, to be eclipsed only in 2020 when the Arlen Specter US Squash Center opens across the street on Drexel University's campus.

Back to Penn - this facility is spectacular. Guests pay a $20 fee to use the courts.

Students and Squash

Check this. David is holding down two majors, singing in three choirs, involved in a church group, and doing an internship in addition to his squash commitments (which include daily practices with the Penn men's coach). David is angling for a spot on varsity next year and I will be rooting for him every step of the way. Thank you, David, for the games!

Take away, and let there be no mistake about it: Penn students are impressive.

Javi and David hadn't met before despite belonging to similar Christian groups on campus. I'm getting a sense of how vast Penn's undergrad community is, and how even students with similar interests can meet two years into their shared time and strike up a new friendship.

Evening and Night

Leaving the Penn athletic facilities, we head out to grab espresso and plan our evening. Clara and I will hang out while Javier hosts a weekly bible-study group. We'll meet up after dinner to hang with some of Javi's Christian Fellowship crew.

Clara and I converse for a good couple hours before venturing forth to find dinner. The options are endless so we will walk and explore. We proceed west on Chestnut street along the north perimeter of campus, all the way to 40th street. Encountering a disturbance on the street, we duck into the first open door - Terakawa Ramen. The ramen is outstanding and the place is packed with undergrads and grad students. Make no mistake, this is a college neighborhood. Most of the patrons are in uniform - lots of Penn hoodies but we also see students repping MIT, Harvard, Drexel and more. After a long dinner and much more conversation, Clara and I hit the street again.

We meet up with Javi and head via car to a house party of Christian Fellowship students. These kids are fantastic! Across diverse academic interests they share an investment in high-energy discussion and debate. We are talking about miracles in the New Testament. Must one read and understand the New Testament literally? Can a budding scientist hold ascientific beliefs? A senior physics major heading to grad school next fall is adamant that he can. I am less sure that this is tenable.

Off campus housing is abundant in West Philly and over 70% of juniors and seniors live off campus. Local houses are stunning in their architecture and appointments, but also pretty run-down. Apartments run the gamut. This is life in West Philly. Not as glamorous as the viewbook might have you believe, but perhaps it's for the best. Even undergrads at one of the world's most elite institutions should experience some austerity.

Sunday

Sunday is a new day. After stovetop espresso we attend a community church service about ten miles outside of the city center on the Main Line. There are a few fellowship students here, and a wonderful mix of community members. I appreciate that students make the effort to get off campus and connect with the wider world like this. Philadelphia is well suited to engage the wider world. My brother has attended events in Washington D.C. and New York with Penn, and has participated in internships around the country. Next summer he will participate in a subsidized trip to Israel that is open only to students at ivy league institutions.

More locally, it's remarkable how many colleges and universities are clustered around Philadelphia. On the Main Line you will find Bryn Mawr and Haverford colleges, and a bit further south, Swarthmore. These three esteemed liberal arts colleges form the Tri-College Consortium. Together with Penn they form the Quaker Consortium. Students at any college can enroll in courses at any other.

Later I encounter another graduate student, an anthropology PhD student who is soliciting surveys to study museum-goers' science literacy. We get to talk about some of the Etruscan artifacts and she points me to a few items I hadn't noticed, including a woman's brooch that might indicate that a high-status female held a role in her community normally reserved for males. If I were a student at Penn, I would be in this museum at least once a week!

The Penn Museum's new world collections are less expansive but benefit from better interpretive materials. The focus on contemporary Native American and First Nations cultures is appreciated. Winona LaDuke, Suzan Shown Harjo, and other native leaders feature prominently in the main exhibit hall. Audio-visual and digital exhibits are outstanding.

Irvine Auditorium and Houston Hall

Parc and the Italians

Sunday dinner is at Parc Bistro on Rittenhouse Square. I took my brother here his freshman year. It's only reasonable to revisit three full years later. Dinner here does not disappoint.

After dinner we finally get to hang with Javi's roommates - the exchange students from Bocconi University in Italy. It is here, in this conversation, that Penn starts to separate for me. Both students are laser focused on their studies at Wharton. Both are completing their masters degree papers and their Wharton coursework in the coming weeks before returning to Milan. Not only am I impressed with their academic focus and commitment, not only am I impressed with their English language skills and their immersion in American life, I am impressed with how genial and friendly they are. After a two-hour conversation my brother and I have invitations to each of their home-towns on our next visit to Italy, and a detailed itinerary for our planned trip to Puglia - right down to the beaches we must visit.

Isn't this what college is about? Yes a lot of course content will be presented and learned, but equally as important are the people one meets on this journey - and the life-long connections that are formed.

Sitting across the table from the Italians, I am starting to fall in love with the University of Pennsylvania. I am starting to understand this place is so much more than the buildings and the courses offered, I am starting to see Penn as the incredible people, the incredible students who come together from around the world to live and learn here. The domestic students that I have met are all pretty laid back. They are happy here but don't seem particularly fervent about their experience. I can tell you that across the three days that I spend here, I only saw the Italians away from their books one time - for this conversation. Their intensity, their commitment, the urgency they convey as they devour their studies, is inspirational. If you had only three or four months to spend on the campus of a world-renowned institution, how would you conduct yourself?

I am starting to see the magic of this place - it is Penn's ability to draw the best out of students as their pursue their higher education.

Info Session

Monday morning it's Penn's chance to tell its own story. I am looking forward to the info session, and in particular the campus tour. The visit begins in the newly updated (and somewhat WeWork-y) admission reception center in the basement of Claudia Cohen Hall. After relaxing in the waiting areas we are ushered into an auditorium for a presentation with audio-visual enhancements. Below are my notes from Dani Fitzgerald's very informative info session.

• The talk will focus on the academic ecosystem at Penn, and also how to apply
• Penn acknowledges that it is located on the Ahipa traditional homelands of the Lenaape people
• Founder Benjamin Franklin was a printer who embodied a life in the liberal arts - scientist, humorist, diplomat, civil servant
• As such, Penn places an emphasis on service within the ABCS (academically based community service) program
• Penn is composed of four undergraduate schools as well as coordinated dual-degree programs
  • College of Arts and Sciences
  • School of Engineering and Applied Science
  • School of Nursing
  • Wharton School
  • Coordinated Dual-Degree Programs
• Students apply to ONE school but take classes across them all
• Penn is NEED BLIND and undergraduate students take NO LOANS to pay for their undergraduate education
• Penn DOES NOT take demonstrated interest into account in rendering their admission decisions

The session delves deep into the interdisciplinary nature of Penn's program. We learn about the range of coursework that a student can explore on their way to degrees in international politics and development. We also see a case study of an international student from Switzerland who is able to ski, research "ultrathin meta-materials," study effects of climate change, become a mechanical engineer, and gain admission into Penn's Vagelos Integrated Program in Energy Research. The session strives to strike a balance between pragmatic (you will gain practical training for a job) and aspirational (you will pursue your broad interests here). Penn's treatment of the liberal arts is appreciated.

In all, the information session is thorough but pedestrian. It is aimed at the general visitor who knows little or nothing about Penn. I am optimistic that the tour will provide much more insight into the student experience here.

We make our way up to the lower corner of Blanche Levy Park and gather around the iconic LOVE statue. Sibyl and Mary are our tour guides. Sibyl is a senior classics major from Westchester, New York and Mary is a first year business student at Wharton from Phoenix, Arizona. The senior/freshman dynamic works well. Sibyl is a consummate veteran, her stories and humor illustrate and bring her Penn experience to life. Mary is a new tour guide but very, very thoughtful, articulate, and impressive. It is good to hear the perspectives of a student from both the College or Arts and Sciences and Wharton.

The tour does not include entrance to any of the buildings we visit. It's just too much cumulative impact for the tens of thousands who visit here every year. But the first hand accounts our guides offer do give a sense of the place. We gain a vivid picture of what it's like for a senior to write an honors thesis alongside a trusted professor and mentor, or to work with another professor to assist in preparing a scholarly paper for publication. We see the Wharton freshman experience through the lens of Wharton 101 - a program in which each incoming student is paired with a local non-profit to work, assist on projects, and help solve problems. Both students share examples of hands on learning through out the tour.

It's a beautiful day to explore campus, and the usual cliche of tour guides getting shout-outs from friends does hold. But there is much authenticity here, in particular when the students describe the relationships they have with their professors. This is one thing that surprises me. I had expected more distance between faculty and students at such a large and graduate-focused institution. I will learn much more about the Penn faculty this afternoon.

Academics

By Monday afternoon I have heard enough, I have seen enough of the margins. It's time to get in a classroom and see Penn in action. I have chosen to visit Deven Patel's class, "The Sanskrit Epics." This turns out to be a very, very fine choice.

Professor Patel is one of the most exhilarating professors I have encountered in any context. With his permission I join the class of about 13 students and sit down. The class begins with Patel's treatment of what will be covered today. The students are quiet; I am apprehensive. But Patel's energy cannot be denied. He is prying at the closed doors of the students' mouths, peppering them with observations and insights, plying them with offers to contribute. We are looking at one of the most important works in all of literature, the centerpiece of the Mahabharata, the Bhagavad Gita. "What was your first encounter with the Bhagavad Gita?" It was the parents or grandparents of some students, a hand-out from a Hare Krishna for another, a corollary to a yoga class for a third. People are starting to talk. Discussion is heating up. Deven is mapping Sanskrit terms, observations of students, and points of critical insight on the chalkboard. A masterful diagram, a map of our discussion is emerging before our eyes.

Patel ventures that the Bhagavad Gita was perhaps a later insertion into the epic, and that it stands out by its didactic, philosophical tone. As Deven and then students read passages aloud, it strikes me that the Homeric epics contain a similar interlude - also in the middle of the text - that differs radically from the rest of the text as a whole: the shield of Achilles, and the journey of Odysseus to the underworld. Next we watch youtube clips from a bizarrely psychedelic made-for-TV version of the epic. Later I am still thinking about this question. Didn't Dostoevsky include the Grand Inquisitor in much the same fashion in the Brothers K? What about the wolf-hunt in War and Peace?

Patel's energy is contagious. The sparks of his intellect set the classroom on fire. A discussion ensues that carries the class along with it. I can see the work that the students have put in reading and thinking about the text and the selected scholarly articles, I can see their hours of preparation bearing fruit in the discussion. Some are actively listening and taking notes, others are contributing when they are ready. Deven Patel is the sort of teacher that any student would be lucky to encounter once in their lifetime. I can see why my brother has taken three classes with him in his time here.

I cannot promise this sort of environment is found in every classroom at Penn. Indeed, my brother has confided that some lecture classes at Penn offer little-to-no value, that some professors are downright disdainful of undergraduates. But if one must endure some mass lectures and an occasional embittered prof to find one Deven Patel, it is a risk worth taking. My experience today is a powerful affirmation of the academic and intellectual experience available at Penn.

Conclusions

I'll confess, I had to overcome some bias to arrive at these conclusions. Over the course of my decade at Reed, I met dozens of children of Penn professors for interviews during their application process. Their refrain to my question, "Why Reed?" was the same - my parents teach at Penn and they think that Reed is the better undergraduate experience. I received accounts from my brother affirming similar points. He noted early in his time here that none of his classes emphasized classroom discussion, and this colored my sense of the place.

Today I can say with confidence that, even in light of these concerns, I will highly recommend the University of Pennsylvania to the right students. There are so many advantages that this institution can confer. I point to:

• Highly motivated peers
• World-class faculty
• International community
• Need-blind admission and no-loans financial aid
• Exceptional resources to support academic program
• Advantages in early stage career development (competitive internships and research opportunities)
• Many career-oriented degrees in a world that increasingly values this
• Fiercely loyal alumni network
• Access to academic, extracurricular, and pre-professional opportunities specific to Penn or Ivy League institutions

The trade-offs one makes to gain these advantages are not insignificant. West Philly is not a nice place to live. Penn's campus is not, one the whole, beautiful. It's not even particularly safe in my experience. Students who need frequent contact with nature might not get that contact here. Students looking for a country club atmosphere might prefer other less-urban campuses. But for students who might relish the gritty Philly vibe, and who might thrive in this competitive, intellectual, intercultural, urban, academic hot-house type atmosphere, the University of Pennsylvania offers a vast world of opportunities and academic resources. To these students I say, Penn might be just the place for you.