Wharton: Kind of a Big Deal

Introduction
The Wharton School, its kind of a big deal on campus, there’s a core curriculum and so you take introductory classes in marketing, finance, accounting, and management, and it kind of gives you a basis to do business, then you can concentrate in a bunch of different fields. It’s kind of like a mini MBA, its not quite as rigorous, it’s a pretty broad education though its definitely not for everybody.

Campus Life and Social Life
I think that students at Penn do a good job of balancing a traditional on campus life with also all the urban opportunities that are out there in Philadelphia. Everyone really kinds of settles in a finds a good group of friends through like social activities, fraternity life, sorority life, or through sports teams things like that. Penn does a really good job of getting people involved with athletics. First semester I played intramural football, intramural soccer, and intramural basketball and if that’s something that you want to do you definitely can. Athletics definitely can be a part of your life if you want it to be. Pretty much everything that you could possibly want to do you can do at Penn. The people here are really intense about what they do. Advertisement
Academics
Some professors are really into their research but a lot of them are really willing to work with kids. All the professors have office hours and most of the relationships are determined on how much you as a student make an effort. So if you want to get a job researching with a particular professor you can do that. There’s a lot of emphasis on solving problems in the real world and dealing with situations from real world perspective rather than solely in an intellectual or academic perspective.

Student Body
The competition is really another level. It’s kind of annoying cause, I know I’m having to work a lot harder here than ever had to in high school. But its also kind of nice because you really get pushed and you really have to extend yourself if you want to continue to grow and actually be at the top. The competition’s pretty tight. Wharton kids are stereotyped as very, very competitive and that’s true in a lot of ways and its not true in a lot of ways. Everybody here wants to do well, but if you work really hard you will do well. It’s not like you’re gonna work and work and work and then you’re gonna fail. You’ll do as well as the amount of work you put into it. The kids here are all very smart but they’re also all very laidback and very, very social, which is one of the things you’ll find at Penn. At Penn kids work really hard but kids play really, really hard. Which to me are two things I thought I had to have in a college experience.

In Closing...
If you go to Penn you can be sure that you’re not going to be able to do everything that the school has to offer because there is just too much.