Common $ense

Who knows, you might end up getting to marry someone hot.

According to this article published in the New York Times magazine this weekend, the entire Penn undergraduate community needs to take a collective chill pill.

My favorite part: “…Their [recent alumni's] message to those coming up behind them…is pretty simple, too: chill out.”

Yeah right, I thought, not Penn graduates. Sure enough, when I looked at the poll’s results for the 473 Penn grads, the two highest rated “I wish I had done this in college” categories were “Taken more courses/diverse courses/internship experience” and “Studied more/taken classes more seriously.” We really do live up to our reputation after all. Our alums must have spent too much time at Smoke’s.

Or are we just the type of people who are never satisfied? Do we strive towards unattainable goals, settling for nothing less than perfection?

Of course we do. We’re not just your average bears. We spend more time in Rosengarten than watching TV. We get up at 9 a.m. and run to DRL for Math 104 recitation.

Naturally, college is a time to let loose - to do socially unacceptable things we’d rather not talk about with our parents or our prospective employers (cough cough block your Facebook now before it’s too late). Undoubtedly, we should have time to enjoy ourselves. A column that ran yesterday in the DP suggests that Penn students should stop encouraging the competitive academic atmosphere.

It’s easy to say, “Aw shucks, kids, get on out there and have some fun!” This is a line I’ve been getting my whole life - how many times have you been warned not to burn out too soon?

The fact that we don’t “chill out” is what gained us admission to an amazing school like Penn. It’s that determination that’s going to make us some of the world’s best doctors, lawyers, CEOs, politicians, musicians and writers. It’s just not in our blood to relax.

So stop telling us to! Applaud us for our accomplishments and challenge us to do even more. Success isn’t handed to us on a silver platter, even with a Penn degree.

A Shot of Hennessy appears every Monday and Wednesday.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 3rd, 2007 at 2:33 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.