It’s not every day you see those sweatpants traded in for tailored suits and shoulder pads.

Last week, as I watched students march down Walnut in appropriate business attire, I wondered how soon they (you?) would be making more money than our fine new mayor.

How much does Nutter make? That’s public information: $186,044.

Depending on who you are, you might be wowed or seriously underwhelmed by that number. But if I may offer the moderately knowledgeable opinion of a Regular Working Person: that is a relatively measly sum for someone with what is — almost inarguably — one of the most difficult jobs in the county.

The catch, of course, is that salaries are in no way decided by how hard a job is — assuming such a thing can even be measured. (Imagine: seventh grade teachers and coal miners would be buying homes in Greenwich and summering in Tuscany.)

Of course there’s nothing easy about the 80-hour weeks recent grads put in at i-banks. But — upon graduation — Wharton undergraduates command an average starting salary of $108,509 (that’s base salary + signing bonus + annual bonus). 100 grand!

Pardon me while I peel my jaw up off the floor.

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Breaking all self-imposed rules, promises, and general personal preferences, I did something awful a few weeks ago. Something self-righteous liberal College students with useless-but-fascinating majors should never have to do. Something I did for you, dear readers. Yes, both of you.

I, Wharton-mocking, anti-Event Planning 100, “Who-Needs-a-Job-When-You-Have-a-Soul” Lindsey Stull, attended management training. For six hours, I stared at PowerPoint presentations and role-played (er, not the fun way) and heard the seconds tick by on the clock behind my head. Worst of all, I was subjected to this in the Death Star, which just added insult to injury. (And yes, it has its own website.)

I stress-ate my way through two sandwiches, handful after handful of chips, and 18 mini candy bars. I then carefully folded the wrappers into perfect little rectangles, wrote out a to do list, saved it on my desktop as a “do me” list, and looked around for the bag of chocolate. I discovered that I cannot, in fact, levitate objects and mentally pull them toward me.

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Today, as of 4:20 pm, 527 Wharton freshman have just gotten their lives back.

This could mean only one thing …

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I have a confession to make . . .

I am a recovering Management 100 TA addict.

At first, this job looked like a dream come true.

Where else in society can you have a somewhat unhealthy obsession with the lives of young students and not have to register with a governmental agency?

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We’re into the name thing at Penn. That’s why we say we’re in Wharton, Nursing, the College, or Engineering.

Now that discussion of the B-FLAT minor for College students has unleashed Wharton’s enmity towards the College, creating a fear of dilution due to the participation of liberal arts students, Dennis DeTurck, Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, rushed to defend the proposed idea in a recent DP:

It is regrettable that Friday’s article gave the impression that there is a fully-formed “program” that the College is “pushing,” or that it is a point of contention between the College and Wharton.

I’m glad Dean DeTurck clarified.
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Every family is a little dysfunctional, and Penn is no different.

On the eve of Family Weekend 2007, it is ironic that we have what appears to be some sibling rivalry between administrators in the College of Arts and Sciences and Wharton.

In today’s DP, there is a front page article detailing a plan by College Dean Dennis DeTurck and the Dean’s Advisory Board to create a business minor in the College. The catch is, it would not be sponsored by Wharton. The program, named B-FLAT, stands for budgeting, finance, leadership and teamwork.

In one of the funnier quotes of the semester, a College senior was quoted as saying the minor was warranted given that College students view Wharton classes as “too difficult and not worth their time.”

*Note – When trying to justify the legitimacy of your program, saying Wharton classes are “too difficult” is probably not the best way to make people sympathetic to your cause. It just supports the stereotype that College students don’t want to work hard and rely on grade inflation.

Wharton Vice Dean Phillips had it right in saying the program would be a “disservice to the school” and a “dilution” to Wharton.

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