“I think what I love doing most is wasting time,” Maura Pinder (W ’24) declares as we settle into the gorgeous porch outside her home (Green Monster House, LLC). “Penn has often made me feel before that I should be streamlining my life, or somehow have the most aerodynamic college years, with the least wind resistance—and no snags.” But Maura is no stranger to a snag, or a bend in the road, or an unexpected change. After four years calling Penn her home, she’s learned to value the odd project, commitment, or hour that others might consider a waste of her time.
But four years ago, Maura didn’t even want to leave her home state of Florida. She freely admits to being scared. Unlike the average student who receives a Wharton admission letter, Penn wasn’t Maura’s ideal choice. “Getting that email was like oh shit … I guess I have to try leaving home now.” But an even bigger snag was just around the corner. Maura’s first year came at the height of the COVID–19 pandemic, and she ended up attending her classes from her bedroom—in Florida after all. Not the ideal first–year experience: And yet, “It was sort of perfect for me,” she admits. “That year online was like my soft launch into college.”
That digital year also brought Maura into the club that made her into the version of herself that she is today. She made an offhand joke in Zoom class, which she didn’t think much of at the time (“not to sound like a dick or anything, but I think I’ve always been the funny friend”) and her TA laughed at it. Suddenly she had an Instagram DM from a friend of her TA asking if she’d ever heard of the Bloomers comedy group. Would she ever consider trying out? She’d be perfect for it! “That is not usually how we recruit, by the way,” she laughs. But Maura was more than a little skeptical. She liked writing and comedy, but she had always been a serious math kid, and calling herself a "writer" seemed to carry connotations of self–seriousness that she didn’t ascribe to.
She auditioned for business and writing, expecting to be dropped into the business side of the operation, only to end up as a writer in her sophomore year. But as a Bloomers writer, pardon the pun, Maura bloomed. Despite being wary of the writing gig, she latched on quickly. Her friend Franny Davis, in particular, was a valuable mentor into both the world of comedy and of personal confidence. Despite a penchant for abstract and esoteric comedy bits that “are only really funny to me,” Maura found herself getting happier and more comfortable with Bloomers almost every day. “It was an incredible thing to slowly realize that I had the respect of my peers.”
After ascending to the position of head writer this fall, Maura tried hard to push herself and the parameters of staged skit comedy. She wanted to go completely “balls to wall!” Her sense of humor is very personal. “So many times I had my fellow writers tell me, 'Maura, this is funny, but it won’t work on stage. But let’s try!'” She kept trying new things, and if they didn’t succeed, she tried again and tried again until they did. It’s the legacy she’s most proud to leave behind, some innovation and punchy ambition that fights against the confines of a linear storyline and the four theater walls. She explained to me one hilarious, abstract bit that involves two characters reading URLs back and forth to each other. I’d dearly like to summarize it for the reader, but I think somehow it only works if writer Maura Pinder herself is there to deliver it.
But writing has given Maura more than a new confidence. “Writing has made me a more empathetic person,” she muses. She thinks there are existing barriers between the artistic side of campus and the more business minded areas, but she sees them as more artificial than not. “I love being in Wharton,” she laughs. “It’s given me so many opportunities … and I can surprise people because they don’t expect it of me.” There aren’t as many differences between her marketing major and her passion for comedy as there might seem either. “At the end of the day, it’s about knowing your audience, and knowing what will make them laugh, or smile, or get excited. And I can do that.”
When she isn’t pivoting between Bloomers or Huntsman, you can find Maura on the front porch of her very historic, very beautiful, very green home. Other than Bloomers, it’s the space that has shaped her Penn years the most, and her face lights up when she talks about her roommates. The residents of Green Monster House even joined an intramural volleyball league together, although they lost every game. “We were piss drunk at every match,” she laughs. “There were so. So many injuries.”
When Maura thinks about what she’s bringing from Penn into the next four years of her life—sure to be full of more exciting snags and bends—she has to wipe off a few tears: her friends, a newfound home in Philadelphia, and above all a belief in herself. “There were times where I felt weakest or lowest … and every time I got back up on the horse. I know now that I am a person who gets back up and keeps going. I’m taking a Maura that is a little bit sharper, brighter, and more polished into the world.”
As for wasting time in the future? Maura has her eye on a job in the restaurant industry this summer. Don’t tell one of her former marketing or business internships, but her favorite job was actually operating the soft serve machine at Dairy Queen a few years ago. But she’s ready for anything. “The person that I was four years ago would not be so ready to take on the world,” Maura says candidly. “I’ve had hella snags … but I think I did everything just the way it was supposed to be done. I tried everything.”
Any other goals for approaching adulthood? Get better at a sport. “I need to find an intramural volleyball league that I can really dominate,” she laughs.
