The University of Pennsylvania

Date: Feb 06 2005
Major: English (This Major's Salary over time)
On the whole, Penn offers a quality education in a dynamic setting. The campus being in West Philly teaches you a lot about how the other half lives. But things have changed since I was there; I remember in the early nineties there were muggings and shootings. A girl was stabbed on our street (41st Street) once and the windows at the pizza place on the corner got its windows shot out twice while I was there. But it made me tougher and gave me an education that few places can offer.

I'd like to see the school offer more room to think outside the proverbial box. And by that I mean concentrate less on Wharton and more on real-life experiences like better internship programs and resources and more of an emphasis, or at least acknowledgement, on the humanities. I was at Penn and was an English major; a majority of people would give me a sympathetic look and ask me if I was going to be a teacher. I told them that I wanted to be a film writer or create my own magazine someday, and they would scoff and tell me that I'm going to be living with my parents. So guess what? I'm doing all of that right now.

But now that I'm older, I understand what it is that I couldn't grasp at the time. College is a business; it's a business of creating the aura of success. Sometimes it offers practical tools for that, but in many cases, it does not, and it's really up to your own personal desires and perserverence to attain your goals. For what it's worth, the connections that I made at Penn have helped immensely, because you're surrounded by well-off people from influential backgrounds. But it's only the first step, albeit a good one, to the road to success.