Luke Gooding’s (C ‘24) path to Penn was never linear. From not realizing he had gotten into Penn until two weeks after Ivy Day, to changing the focus of his studies, to finding a new community that he never expected to become a part of at Penn, Luke's has forged his own Penn path.
“I had forgotten I had applied to Penn,” Luke admits to me when I ask about his college trajectory. “Two weeks after Ivy acceptances, something told me to check my promotions folder … I got in, and my parents were excited, but it wasn’t like those videos I see on Instagram of people, like, crying and throwing up. I also didn’t know what Penn was, really […] I rejected the initial offer because they didn’t give me enough financial aid, and I also had a scholarship from my local government to attend my local university, so unless I was getting to attend Penn almost for free, I had no intention of coming. I was very transparent to them … I wanted more opportunities.”
When asked how the COVID–19 pandemic impacted his college experience, Luke says, “I think it enhanced it.” Everyone in his family took gap years before college anyway, and so he followed suit, spending time in his home of Trinidad and Tobago. Besides, he “heard about the horror stories at Penn … but I had a really good time in Trinidad with good weather, and I didn’t have to go through adapting to a new country.”
“It was a time for me to think about what I’m really doing. [In secondary school], I had to narrow my studies to three subjects for two years … the only thing I could have done at my local university was something related to the sciences.” Then, after two years of studying physics, chemistry, and pure mathematics, Luke realized that the sciences were not for him.
“I like to speak to people, I like to talk about things outside of the sciences,” Luke tells me. “I chose PPE because I thought it would be niche, something interesting—turns out everybody does it,” he laughs. “I pivoted as hard as I could to PPE, and then a couple years in I wanted to do some research on the Caribbean. There was no stuff available. I reached out to everyone who had anything to do with the Caribbean at Penn, and eventually, I realized—and a couple of them suggested—that I do my own research. So last year I applied for CURF funding for research, so I got to do research back home on Trinidad’s education system.”
Clearly, research is a niche that Luke enjoys—he tells me that he’s involved with three different research projects. Outside of the academic sphere, however, he’s also found an unexpected community in Onda Latina, Penn’s Latin dance group. “From no dance experience to being able to perform in New York City, being able to choreograph eight pieces, it’s been a community I didn’t expect to find … but the way they opened up a space for me and [for me being able to] express myself in a way I didn’t know I could express myself, I thought that was really great, and that, to me, is the cornerstone of my Penn experience.”
Similarly to his entry into Penn, Luke almost wasn’t part of the dance group that he speaks of so fondly. “They [Onda] accosted me on Locust Walk,” he says, which is the start of any good Penn performing arts story. “They invited me to audition, and they marketed it as something, like, ‘Oh, just think of it as a free lesson, think of it as an opportunity to try something new, it’s not a big time commitment, just come have fun at auditions.’ So I went to auditions, and I didn’t go to the callbacks even though they called me back, because I wasn’t interested. But then they did makeup callbacks, and I went, and they accepted me. Since then it’s been a great ride. The biggest part of my Penn experience has been with Onda Latina.”
Despite all the shifts Luke has gone through, he’s proud to say that in many ways, he’s still the same person who came to Penn in 2020. “I’m glad that I’m still me and I get to share my culture,” he tells me, reflecting on the four years he’s spent at Penn. “I haven’t lost my accent, I’m very glad for that. I just feel very much the same person as when I came in. Not exactly—there are lots of other things that have changed about me—but my sense of myself is the same. I still feel like an independent [person]. I’m comfortable in my own skin. I view the world differently, I have different friends, I have a lot of different life experiences, but my sense of self is still there, and I’m grateful for that.”
