Below are your search results. You can also try a Basic Search.
Chad Vigil (C’20) is going to be a doctor. He’s graduating from Penn with a degree in neuroscience and a minor in chemistry, but that doesn’t necessarily mean he’s a medical professional quite yet.
Locust Walk bustling with students rushing to get to class. Late nights studying in Van Pelt. Sink or Swim at Smokes'. There are countless quintessential parts of the Penn experience that students are missing due to the pandemic. For Lucy Corlett (C’20), it’s getting a coffee at Wilcaf.
The first thing you notice about Catherine de Luna (C‘20) is her warm, inviting smile. It’s pretty difficult to exude anything but awkwardness on a Zoom call with someone you’ve never met, but somehow it doesn’t even faze her. It's immediately clear she’s the kind of person you want to be friends with: funny, nice, outspoken, thoughtful, and honest—she doesn’t mince words when it comes to describing what she believes, and she is incredibly passionate about everything she does.
Although our meeting is virtual, I can almost feel the sunshine radiating off of Jazzy Ortega’s (E ‘20) screen on Zoom. Maybe it’s because she’s video calling from outside her home in Southern California, with a backdrop of blue sky and healthy green trees. Or maybe it’s because from the moment we started the meeting, Jazzy hasn’t stopped smiling. Although the second half of her semester has been—to put it nicely—not what she expected, her optimism doesn’t waver throughout the interview.
From the way Sam Friskey (C'20) speaks, it’s clear she’s a writer. She is eloquent; her sentences are smooth and rhythmic and her word choices are crisp and precise. She speaks slowly, carefully, with thoughtful pauses replacing the “um”s typically sprinkled throughout colloquial dialogue. I’m not surprised when she tells me she’s an English major. But I am awed when she tells me that she’s an award–winning playwright.
When Jacob Hershman (C’20) was fourteen, he was pretty sure that the world was going to end on December 21st, 2012.
AJ Brodeur (W ‘20) has been playing basketball for as long as he can remember, learning the sport as soon as he was “big enough to stand up and pick up a ball.”
At midnight, in December of 2016, Sneha Advani (C & E'20) heard a knock on the door to her first–year dorm. She opened it to 30 people standing outside, wishing her a happy birthday. They were led there by her sister, a senior at Penn at the time, who had brought a cake and arranged for the residents of King's Court 4th floor to surprise Sneha.
When Elizabeth Agege (C’20) took the podium at her fifth–grade graduation, she told the room filled with pre–teens and their parents that she wanted to be a writer. Admittedly, it was a second–choice career, an ironic safety net. Now, it’s the first title she’ll hold upon commencement.
Hadassah Raskas (C ‘20) hates tomatoes.
Talking with Vickie Yin (C'19) in an empty music practice room on the fourth floor of Fisher Bennett, it’s hard not to feel zen. Empty music stands surround us. A french horn can be heard from a nearby room. Vickie sits crossed legged and poised. She tells me about the emotionally, mentally, and physically draining parts of her Penn experience, all while maintaining a calm voice and a soft smile.
He’s a big fan of coffee.
It’s Wednesday, and Eden Harris (E '19) is peeling an orange. She removes the rind and picks at the pith until each slice is clean, then breaks them in half to eat them. We’re talking at the Penn First (First–Generation Low–Income) Town Hall, which is far less formal than it sounds. Today, we’re making lip scrubs out of brown sugar and coconut oil. There are apples and oranges for people to eat on the table, and everyone is making idle chit–chat.
Emmett Neyman (E '19) finds comfort in groups. He thrives when he’s being social; It’s clear from the way he lights up when he talks about tutoring other engineering students, playing on his Ultimate Frisbee team, or how he tries to fit lunches with prospective students during Quaker Days into his schedule. Even his bright purple t–shirt—branded with the “Penn Engineering” logo—links him to a broader community. For Emmett, the Engineering Quad is his home base, and he couldn’t look more comfortable sitting at a small table in the white marble halls of Towne.
Erumuse Momoh (C’19) started playing soccer at four years old. He’d been inside his family’s house in Silver Springs, Md., kicking around a ball—maybe a soccer ball, maybe a basketball, maybe one of those toy balls for kids to play with. Somehow, the ball got away from him and he shattered four of his father’s prize vases, leaving only the tallest one—as tall as he is now—intact. His dad walked in, saw the carnage, and carted him off to Little League soccer sign ups around the corner. And, as Erumuse says, “the rest was history.”
Aadir Khan (C '19) was going to grill some sausages, but he was too busy prepping for his next presentation at the Pentagon, and got sidetracked. This will be his third time presenting there—in the past he’s presented to various organizations within the Department of Defense about Terrorist Financing, the legality of the Enhanced Interrogation Program, and other measures being employed in engagements against ISIS. This next presentation deals with National Emergency Powers. In these presentations, Aadir acts as a representative for the Center of Ethics and Rule of Law—an institution at Penn Law committed to promoting and preserving exactly what its name implies. Aadir has been working for CERL since his sophomore year—so at this point, these Pentagon gigs are commonplace.
“I’ve only cried tears of pure joy two times in my life: one would be getting into Wharton, and the other would be getting my McKinsey offer,” Isabella Anastasoff (W’ 19) says, raking her hands through her hair, fighting the wind. “I hate to tie my highest high...of Penn to career only,” she insists, while sighing somewhat halfheartedly. I find this admission surprising because she truly loves business.
No ordinary person would admit they were obsessed with bridges as a kid or filled camera rolls with pictures of interesting–looking fire hydrants. But as Jackson Betz (C ‘19) tells me about his quirky childhood passions, it becomes clear that he was no ordinary kid.
Scott MacGuidwin’s (C, W '19) cat, Luna, wakes him up in the mornings by licking his face. During the day, Luna roams the halls of Scott’s fraternity house, Sigma Nu. At night, she sleeps in his room.
Vivian Dai (C ’19) is the kind of person who would order dessert at the bar. She sits with her legs crossed, hands moving frantically, telling a story about the time her Urban Studies professor invited his class out for drinks. Instead of alcohol, which she claims causes her to flush and a litany of blotches, she opted for a large piece of layer cake.
Get 34th Street's newsletter, The Toast, delivered to your inbox every Friday morning.
Newsletters