Anna Dworetzky’s (C ’24) love for learning lives outside of lecture halls. It hangs on the corals of the Great Barrier Reef, scatters across sandy San Francisco beaches, and peers through snorkeling goggles in St. Croix.
At the start of the pandemic, it started making less and less sense for Anna to spend four years straight at Penn. A brief stint working at a deli on Nantucket turned into three semesters of traveling, connecting with nature, and experiencing the satisfaction of realizing the things she loves most.
Anna and I meet at a lone table on College Green. It’s the first 70–degree afternoon of the semester, and Anna’s bubbly personality is just as comforting as the sun I had been missing. She wears white linen pants, and bright green sneakers, toting her Tupperware container filled with a meal–prepped salad.
Though Anna spent her early childhood living in Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia, she self–identifies as a Californian. Her family relocated to San Francisco when she was nine years old. “Being at Penn is fun because it reconnects me with my Philly roots,” she says.
Anna began her first year in 2019 as a biology major. She was always interested in marine science and sustainability but worried about being taken seriously in the higher education STEM world. “I kind of got it in my head when applying to colleges that I couldn’t study marine biology, like that was too specific. It wasn’t rigorous,” she says. “I needed to set myself up for a more quote–unquote ‘legit’ career.”
Hailing from a “tiny private school in suburban San Francisco,” Penn was the first place where Anna felt she had to try to make friends. “I never really thought about community in [high school] because community had always been inherent to my educational career,” she says. “It was never something I had to work to build.”
During her first spring break back home in San Francisco, the pandemic began. In the following months, Anna spent as much time outside as possible, lying on the beach, and swimming in the ocean. “I realized that [being in nature] was really important to me in a way that I was taking for granted or wasn’t able to name,” she says.
In the summer of 2020, Anna lived on Nantucket with a few friends from high school. “It was just me, my friends, and this alone time,” she says. At the end of the summer, Anna proposed to her parents that she take a semester off from Penn, and continue living on Nantucket. “I [felt] so much better in myself as a person than I did six months ago,” she says. “College [wasn’t] going to be good for me.”
Anna stayed on Nantucket through the fall, relishing the love from her closest female friendships, and accepting that all paths look a little bit different. When the New England winter started to bite, Anna and her friends took a two–week road trip back to California. During this trip, Anna realized she still wasn’t ready to return to Penn. “Literally, as I was driving cross–country, I remember being on the phone with my college advisor,” she says, “I was like ‘Hey, I’m not coming back.’” With a remote part–time internship and a nine–month–long spring break, Anna had no idea what would happen next.
One day, in a moment of divine intervention, Anna got a call from her best friend, Grace. Grace’s grandparents owned a condo in St. Croix in the United States Virgin Islands. “Do you want to move down there with me for a couple weeks?” Grace asked, to which Anna replied, “F**k yeah!” The pair of friends, riddled with uncertainty and wanderlust, moved on to their next adventure.
Upon arriving in St. Croix, Anna got a job as a snorkeling guide. Each day consisted of sailing out to an island, snorkeling, and sailing back—a dream come true for Anna. “I felt so good in my skin,” Anna says. “I felt weirdly intellectually curious in a way that I had never been in school, and I was so excited to get out, and be in the world every day.”
In St. Croix, Anna learned what it was like to be truly passionate about something. Embraced by the beauty of her temporary home, Anna acquainted herself with the Caribbean Sea, and the creatures it houses. As time passed, Anna and Grace kept delaying their return date to the U.S. “We were supposed to stay for four weeks, and we stayed for six months,” she says.
When Anna came back to Penn after her gap year, she knew it was time to make some changes. “I [didn’t] have any choice but to make sure I’m trying to live a life that’s going to bring me joy,” she says. Her first step was to create her own version of a marine biology major at Penn. She became a double major, tacking on earth science with a concentration in environmental science.
Additionally, Anna started working at The Barott Lab conducting coral research. Her work with Dr. Katie Barott has parlayed into her thesis: examining the effects of climate change on corals. Anna’s research combines the things she loves most: nature, the ocean, and doing absolutely everything she can to protect it.
Last semester, Anna studied abroad in Townsville, a city on the northeast coast of Queensland, Australia. She participated in a marine science program at James Cook University, spending her days with corals in the Great Barrier Reef.
After graduating, Anna hopes to pursue a Ph.D. in marine science or coral science. Before that, she’s taking (another) gap year to teach at a marine science experiential education camp on Santa Catalina Island off the coast of Los Angeles. “I need to do what I can to find people that care about the things I care about,” Anna says.
In the meantime, Anna is soaking up her last few weeks as a Penn student—going for runs in The Woodlands (her favorite place in West Philadelphia), finishing her dreaded multivariable calculus requirement, and reading a ton. Her recent favorite book is Anagrams by Lorrie Moore, which she describes as a story of “love and loss and the relationships we have with people”.
Anna reads out a line from Anagrams she typed out in her Notes app: “'No, I say. And in my heart, I take back everything mean I’ve ever said about God.'” She identifies with these words, and it makes perfect sense; like the quote, Anna Dworetsky is emotional, thoughtful, and absolutely, completely real.
