Penn10 2024

01. Anna Dworetzky

INTERVIEWED BY KATE RATNER

PHOTO BY WEINING DING

For Anna, life is much more interesting underwater.

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. k

Maura Pinder prefers the long and winding road.

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

But four years ago, Maura didn’t even want

PHOTO BY WEINING DING

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 wary. 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 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. k

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.

03. Kayli Mann

INTERVIEWED BY SOPHIA ROSSER

This senior shows us that sometimes the grass is greener on the other side of the compass.

PHOTO BY WEINING DING

There’s no other place like [college]. We all come from different places and ways of thinking and have so much to learn from each other. It’s likely that the places we go after college will not be nearly as diverse in terms of backgrounds and thinking as it is at college.

Ifeel like I did everything kind of wrong and ended up in the right place,” says Kayli Mann, summing up her college experience. From making the move from her rural town to Philadelphia to her involvement in Penn’s musical theater scene to transferring out of Wharton, Kayli has pivoted a few times since the pandemic.

Kayli didn’t think she would ever leave rural West Virginia. No one from her school had been accepted to an Ivy League school in the past ten to 20 years. However, after she received exceptional ACT scores, she realized that she had a chance. Having application fee vouchers, Kayli sent out applications anywhere to see what would stick. Kayli ended up getting into 15 out of the 16 schools she applied to, including six Ivies.

“There was no precedent for me to understand what was going on. I had no idea what I wanted to do or where I wanted to go,” she recalled. To make a confusing time worse, the COVID–19 pandemic hit. Kayli was unable to visit any of the schools she was accepted to. It was only the fact that Kayli was accepted to Wharton and the Joseph Wharton Scholars program, coupled with Penn only being a “nine hour drive instead of a 16 hour drive” from home, that made her commit to Penn.

However, a virtual first semester did have its benefits. “Thank God PennArts was virtual,” Kayli said. Had PennArts not been virtual, Kayli would not have been able to afford the extra tuition cost to pay for the Penn Players pre–orientation program.

Talking to upperclassmen during Zoom lunches, she was encouraged to try out musical theater. She played Winnie Foster in the Penn Players’ virtual rendition of Tuck Everlasting. She went on to produce the Penn Players' musical the next fall and became chair of Penn Players, making some of her best friends and creating a valuable support system for her move to campus.

Kayli’s first time at Penn, like most of the graduating senior class, came at the start of her first spring semester. “It was funky because I committed to this school and [I didn’t] even know where the dining hall [was],” she says.

Philadelphia was a big shift from her rural West Virginia lifestyle. At home, the nearest store being a 40–minute car ride away. Geographically, Kayli wasn’t used to walking places. Culturally, people were more liberal at Penn than back home. People were also a lot more wealthy at Penn.

Kayli quickly realized that Wharton was not the place for her. Since she didn’t have reliable WiFi at home, Kayli recalls traveling to a not–so–nearby Starbucks or fruitlessly trying to connect to her data hotspot to get her classes done. In part because the hoops she had to jump through to attend her classes, she failed economics her first semester. She also hated most of her other Wharton classes.

What sealed the deal for her was watching the movie Arbitrage in one of her Wharton classes. In

the film, Richard Gere plays a hedge fund manager who has an affair with the young owner of an art gallery. Gere’s character kills her while driving her home intoxicated. Gere’s character spends the rest of the movie using his money to cover up the murder. He’s also been embezzling money.

When Kayli’s class discussed the movie after watching it, she said, “This is kind of a sham movie because he has no redeeming qualities besides the fact that he's Richard Gere.” Expecting everyone else in the class to agree with her, Kayli was caught off guard when one of the first years in her class chimed into the discussion saying that he related to the “moral struggles” Richard Gere’s character was going through. “I was like, ‘I cannot do this. Moral struggles, what more struggles? He killed a person. Also, you’re like 18, hopefully you’ve never been there,’” Kayli recalled.

After Penn turned a blind eye to her 2.97 GPA (technically she needed a 3.0 GPA to transfer but they let her do it, since no one ever transfers out of Wharton), she transferred into the College to study anthropology. “I would rather have four years of being happy than, like, four years of misery and like an extra bit [on my resume] that no one's gonna look at,” said Kayli. And ever since she watched Castle and Bones as a child, she had known she wanted to study anthropology.

Kayli found much more intellectual satisfaction with her anthropology classes. She feels like they “[activated] her brain and [challenged] her beliefs a lot.” She described growing up in a “conservative Protestant white environment,” and never really feeling like she belonged, but also not knowing anything else. Her anthropology classes introduced her to new concepts, vocabulary, and ways of thinking about the world that resonated with her.

“A lot of us grew up not being able to express those [our beliefs] and then [we] get to a place where [we] can and everyone thinks that the place that we are in now where we feel safe enough to say those things is what taught us [our beliefs], even if it's been in us all along,” Kayli reflects.

“There’s no other place like [college]. We all come from different places and ways of thinking and have so much to learn from each other. It’s likely that the places we go after college will not be nearly as diverse in terms of backgrounds and thinking as it is at college," Kayli says. To make the most of it, Kayli’s tried to meet as many people as she can.

Even though Kayli’s college experience was anything but linear, she’s learned a lot about herself and what she doesn’t like along the way.

“A big theme throughout college was ‘Alright, we're gonna get rid of these what ifs?’” These experiences have given her confidence in her decisions, esepcially during her biggest one. Kayli Mann knows from experience that what’s on the other side of the compass isn’t for her. k

04. Jonathan Song

INTERVIEWED

BY ANNA O'NEILL-DIETEL

Jonathan Song, queen of swords, guides with perspective and an open mind.

PHOTO BY WEINING DING

When I first spot Jonathan Song (C ‘23), he’s deeply immersed in a tarot card reading session with his friends at Metropolitan Bakery. He eagerly explains his reading to me. In the center lies love, accompanied by the Queen of Cups hovering above. Sporting a long, platinum blond shag, the compassion between Jonathan and the ephemeral, blond queen, is an easy one. Jonathan smiles, “I think these [readings] are more shaped by what my friends know about what’s going on in my life.”

Our conversation encapsulates Jonathan’s outlook on life. With a keen interest in the laws that govern our universe and their spiritual interpretations, Jonathan extracts valuable insights from every encounter he has. He doesn’t hesitate to scrutinize the activities in which he participates, but hopes to foster connections through artistic and philosophical pursuits.

Jonathan started his freshman year in 2019. His mindset going into college was profoundly shaped by his high school experience at an all–boys Catholic school in Vancouver, British Columbia—where God and brotherhood were held up above all else. He felt the pressure to repress his sexuality, constantly feeling the need to conform. Coming to Penn, Jonathan promised himself that he would live truthfully.

As a freshman, Jonathan rushed a frat and flirted with an economics major. He sensed that being involved in greek life would bring him success and social currency, but wrestled with this notion, battling his personal promise to live truthfully. Everything changed in the spring of his freshman year when Penn’s campus shut down during the COVID–19 pandemic.

Despite the circumstances, Jonathan was grateful for time off–campus. He took a gap year to do some soul–searching, and this was a perfect opportunity to take advantage of the time away from Penn and do so.

Jonathan meditated for a month, painted, learned to sew, and wrote a song. He also had several realizations about his studies. By his gap year, Jonathan had moved away from economics and was interested in architecture. He had a passion for his craft, but he was also often frustrated. The gap semester helped Jonathan understand that passion didn't guarantee an absence of challenges.

Partway through Jonathan’s gap semester, his dad suggested he “should do something legitimate.” Jonathan moved to a research internship in Japan at the Fukuoka Institute of Technology, studying supercapacitors (a mix between capacitors and batteries). He then tried his hand at a startup inspired by the experience, but after realizing that it would be unrealistic to continue as a student, put it down. Jonathan decided to take the rest of his gap year to explore the world. Well–traveled and modest, he bats away the question of where he went. “It’s kind of basic,” he laughs. But in the last part of Jonathan’s gap semester, he lived in New York City and Los Angeles for a month each, then city–hopped in Europe for two months, visiting ten cities.

Jonathan returned to Penn in 2021 with a renewed sense of purpose. With a knack for physics and an affinity for the cosmos, he added a physics major. “The laws of physics govern our world and our machines,” says Jonathan. “The type of impact I want to make in this world requires me to speak its language and to understand its language.”

After his time abroad, Jonathan re–encoun -

tered the familiar social and economic hierarchy that privileged wealth, whiteness, and prestige on campus. While Jonathan clarifies that he does not entirely fault Penn for this hierarchy, noting the University’s efforts to offer equal access to opportunities, he finds Penn to be extremely stratified. Jonathan acknowledges the importance of earning money, but believes Penn places too much emphasis on wealth, leading students towards dehumanizing jobs. He wanted to chip away at this paradigm.

Jonathan found inspiration for this goal at an artist collective he visited in Berkeley, Calif. There, he saw 59 students and artists, living in harmony amid vibrant murals telling the cooperative’s history. “I saw a community that embodied all the values I hoped I could pass on,” he explains.

At Berkeley, Jonathan learned that collectives require core values. He recognized that establishing a collective offered a means to counteract “a rapid loss of sense of community.” It also offers residents and visitors the opportunity to defy the constraints imposed by societal norms.

Jonathan began establishing a collective at

Penn in an 11–bedroom West Philadelphia house, dubbed “The Herzog Collective.” It was named after the house’s builder, Herman Herzog, a successful nineteenth–century landscape painter. In the first year, Jonathan felt strongly that the collective should serve as a radical housing experiment or even a utopia. But, he explains that he saw the hypocrisy in calling it a utopia at an Ivy League school, implying that living in the house comes with strict doctrine. Today, Jonathan views the Herzog Collective as “a community that drives toward unity” or an academe, an academic community.

The key to the Herzog Collective is its mission of equity. The group devised a way of establishing rent and creating a collective fund to stock the pantry and cook group meals, as well as buy cleaning and gardening supplies. The collective fund also allows the group to put on events for the house and the wider community.

The first event the house hosted was called the “Transcendence Carnival.” “That is what I considered the moment that we defined our image at Penn and defined our possibility,” says Jonathan. Between 500 and 600 people attended the event, which was free and open to the public.

What is the future of the Herzog Collective? Currently, much of the collective’s activities are coordinated in collaboration with Penn affiliated arts groups and LGBTQ+ groups. The group also added monthly community service to their schedule. Jonathan envisions the collective as a haven for marginalized communities, a mission he intends to uphold. Looking ahead, Jonathan says that the students who will lead the Herzog Collective after he leaves Penn view it in less revolutionary terms, but as a “place where people can feel safe and feel a sense of community and love.”

The Herzog Collective is a key part of Jonathan’s Penn experience. “I love it. It's my number one commitment, sometimes at odds with all my physics exams,” he laughs. “I've spent a lot of energy on it and I'm really proud of where it is.”

Jonathan intertwined Herzog with his academic experience at Penn. Currently, Jonathan is working on his two senior theses. The first, inspired by an auto–fiction course, is a novel for his creative writing minor. The book, tentatively titled Turning Money into Stardust, will detail the history of the Herzog Collective.

When asked what the future holds for him, Jonathan has one word: “Freedom.” He is going to France for one semester to study physics and spend one semester in London to study architecture. After more time abroad, Jonathan plans to continue to study music and writing.

Jonathan’s time at Penn is a symphony of transformations: From fraternities and economics to the boundless realms of architecture and physics, Jonathan epitomizes the seeker, his mind unfettered by convention. While his recent tarot card reading aligned him with the ephemeral queen of cups, perhaps the queen of swords fits Jonathan best: forever probing and challenging the orthodox. k

05. Vicki de la Rosa

INTERVIEWED BY WEIKE LI

This Penn senior is unafraid to try anything once.

PHOTO BY WEINING DING

During the summer of 2020, on a whim, Vicki de la Rosa (C '24) drove 20 hours with her friends from north New Jersey to Florida. Along the journey, they stopped in North Carolina and Savannah, Ga., eventually reaching her grandma’s house in Florida. They drove back after a few days.

According to Vicki, this was one of “those spontaneous things” that characterized so much of her college experience. Growing up in north Jersey close to New York, Vicki always knew that she wanted an urban college environment. Her decision eventually came down to a choice between Penn and Northwestern University—both universities with close access to a bustling downtown—and Penn just struck her as “the perfect in–between of everything [she] was looking for.” A mid–sized campus in a mid–sized city, with robust programs in lots of academic disciplines, Penn was an eclectic mix of everything she needed.

Like many Penn students, Vicki came in pre–med, but even before committing to Penn, she felt like she “wasn’t super set on the track.” Still, she followed the conventional rite of passage easing into Penn with general education classes like writing seminars and math, as well as biology courses for the pre–med track. But there just seemed to be something wrong—or maybe her college life hadn’t actually, really started.

And then COVID–19 hit. After her spring break of 2020, everyone was quickly moved off campus and online. After “only a taste of what college was supposed to be like,” Vicki knew that she would not want to spend her time and energy confined to a bedroom all day. While a gap year seems like a huge commitment to make, Vicki casually provided the perfect counterargument: “I knew that I have four years at school and I’m still going to have four years; but it’s just like, do I have to do my four years now or can I do it later?”

If there was one thing Vicki would not change about her college years, it would be the decision to take the gap year. Every opportunity she grabbed, trip she took, and friend she met stayed with her, and shaped her journey back to Penn. The gap year began a chain reaction; one spontaneous decision after another followed.

When she got back to campus in 2021, Vicki joined

The WALK magazine, took more classes that interested her, switched from pre–med to cognitive science and a minor in consumer psychology, joined a sorority, met more people, and tried different internship opportunities—from marketing to product management to consulting. Now she’s the president of both Penn Dance and the Sigma Kappa sorority, and she’s in two different senior societies, the Carriage and the Order, just to “make new friends and

It may well be argued that instead of saying the gap year changed Vicki, it’s the gap year that convinced her that change is everywhere

meet new people you haven’t really been able to meet otherwise.”

While this all might sound like one of those typical pivots from paralysis to action, Vicki’s is far more complicated than that. Vicki’s change to cognitive science and consumer psychology was driven strongly by a desire to actually understand human behavior in general. Her favorite class at Penn was behavioral economics, where the students explore how consumers respond to real–life business situations. Vicki also found that her new major and minor really complement each other perfectly, with her major exploring human mind and brain from a more scientific standpoint, while the minor in consumer psychology delves into human psyche from

economic and cultural perspectives.

Instead of viewing her present as a sharp turn away from her past, Vicki thinks of her life as opening up. She never walked away from the medical world, working as a physical therapist assistant during her gap year, and even did a whole online program on medical scribing. Vicki said that she still loves medicine, but she just found that there were so many things in life beyond school during her gap year, and she doesn’t feel like spending many more years in a medical school post–graduation. “I kind of just wanted to, like, get into life,” said Vicki. If anything, life is spontaneous, unmediated, and full of all kinds of sparkles and pivots. Vicki quickly started bringing that mindset to Penn. Vicki went to the audition and joined Penn Dance simply because of a canceled dinner plan. While she was walking around campus in boredom, she saw the poster and decided to give it a shot—and now she is the president of the club, holds two classes on ballet and modern dance per week, puts on a show each semester, and says that “it was one of the best things that happened that I wouldn’t change.”

So, instead of a gap–year heel turn, Vicki’s stories abound with pivots, with a nonchalant attitude towards the spontaneity of life that shines. It may well be argued that instead of saying the gap year changed Vicki, it’s the gap year that convinced her that change is everywhere. In addition to her trip to Florida, Vicki also went to live in Aruba for five weeks with a group of students in her town that were also taking a gap year. They hung out, made friends with locals, worked remotely, and even learned snorkeling because one of their neighbors happened to be a snorkeling instructor. Why take this trip? She just happened to find a cheap flight and place to live.

At one point during our interview, I asked her one of my favorite ice–breaking questions: Who would you cast in a film that portrays your college life? Vicki gave it a long, hard thought, seemingly parsed through multiple choices, and finally said that she just couldn’t decide. As much as I’d like to find out about the answer, I gradually realized the beauty of non–decision as I finished the interview and wrote this piece. A complex myriad of sparkling spontaneity, Vicki’s life is simply too fabulous to be reduced to one actress, essence, or pivot. k

Jo Armstrong PG. 16

Caroline Milgram PG. 14

Vicky de la Rosa PG. 10

Jonathan Song PG. 8

Kayli Mann PG. 6

Maura Pinder PG. 4

Anna Dworetzky PG. 2

David Feng PG. 18

Rodrigo Veiga da Cunha PG. 20

Luke Gooding PG. 22

PENN PIVOTS

For the Class of 2024, every student remembers where they were when they saw the news—the bleak headlines of the COVID–19 era were the backdrop for the beginning of their undergraduate careers. These memories play through the minds of this year’s graduating class when they reflect on their first year at Penn. This year’s Penn 10 features a unique class of students whose college years underwent a significant pivot in their academic, personal, or professional trajectories because of the pandemic. Freshman year could’ve been spent trotting down Locust from classes to clubs but it soon turned to 8 am Zoom seminars. Recruiting interviews were conducted from childhood bedrooms and the new daily uniform became formal wear on top with pajamas on the bottom. But amid the loss of a traditional freshman year, an opportunity to tread off the beaten path emerged. The pandemic took our Penn 10 graduates thousands of miles from Penn’s campus on cross–country road trips or to research in Japan. Even if they didn’t leave their childhood bedrooms, the personal journeys our Penn 10 class took were transformative. While all roads led back to Penn, the pandemic left an indelible mark on the development of the Class of 2024’s undergraduate experience.

LAND ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

The Land on which the office of The Daily Pennsylvanian stands is a part of the homeland and territory of the Lenni–Lenape people. We affirm Indigenous sovereignty and will work to hold the DP and the University of Pennsylvania more accountable to the needs of Indigenous people.

CONTACTING 34th STREET MAGAZINE

If you have questions, comments, complaints or letters to the editor, email Natalia Castillo, Editor–in–Chief, at castillo@34st. com. You can also call us at (215) 422–4640. www.34st.com © 2023 34th Street Magazine, The Daily Pennsylvanian, Inc. No part may be reproduced in whole or in part without the express, written consent of the editors. All rights reserved.

nerd gummy cluster

EXECUTIVE BOARD

Natalia Castillo, Editor–in–Chief castillo@34st.com

Catherine Sorrentino, Print Managing Editor sorrentino@34st.com

Norah Rami, Digital Managing Editor rami@34st.com

Kate Ratner, Assignments Editor ratner@34st.com

Wei-An Jin, Design Editor jin@thedp.com

EDITORS

Hannah Sung, Features Editor

Jules Lingenfelter, Features Editor

Anna O'Neill-Dietel, Focus Editor

Issac Pollack, Focus Editor

Claire Kim, Style Editor

Sophia Rosser, Ego Editor

Nishamth Bhargava, Music Editor

Luiza Louback, Arts Editor

Weike Li, Film & TV Editor

Sophia Liu, Design Editor

Jean Park, Street Photo Editor

Abhiram Juvvadi, Photo Editor

Jada Eible Hargro, Social Media Editor

THIS ISSUE

Charlotte Bott, Copy Editor

Laura Shin, Copy Editor

Deputy Design Editors

Emmi Wu, Insia Haque, Katrina Itona

Design Associates

Samantha Hsiung

STAFF

Features Staff Writers

Caleb Crain, Keira Feng, Eleanor Grauke, Meiling Mathur, Lily Markis Mclean, Delaney Parks, Luiza Sulea

Focus Beat Writers

Maddy Brunson, Charissa Hooward, Prerna Kulkarni, Bobby McCaann, Ellie Meyer, Chloe

Norman

Style Beat Writers

Madeline Kohn, Steven Li, Natasha Yao

Music Beat Writers

Jake Falconer, Meehreen Syed, Ananya Varshneya

Jake Falconer, Meehreen Syed, Ananya Varshneya

Arts Beat Writers

Maya Grunschlag, Dylan Grossmann, Kyunghwan Lim, Neha Peddinti, Hannah Qiu

Film & TV Beat Writers

Aden Berger, Bea Hammam, Emma Halpher, Fiona Herzog, Erin Jeon, Amy Luo, Thu Pham

Ego Beat Writers

Sophie Barkan, Parin Keerthi, Gemma Levy, Talia Shapiro, Ella Shusterman, Leah Weinberger, Rosemary Yang

Staff Writers

Charlotte Comstock, Julia Fischer, Caitlyn

Iaccino, Andrew Lu, Maia Saks, Zaara Shafi, Aaron Visser

Photo by Weining Ding

Caroline Milgram

INTERVIEWED BY JULES LINGENFELTER

Avid Beli user, Westerburg high school student council member, single term UA representative: What

PHOTO BY WEINING DING

Caroline Milgram (C ‘24) shows up to Stommons in a brown T–shirt and biker shorts. “I don’t do well in the heat,” she explains, referencing the cute dresses everyone else seems to be wearing as the weather reaches above eighty in mid–April. Her affinity for the cold is what helped her to survive the harsh Chicago winter of her first year. “I love the cold. People hated it, but I loved that it snowed every day for three weeks.” A smile plants itself on her face as she recounts those frozen days, ones that Philadelphia much more rarely sees.

As a Philly native, Caroline yearned to expand beyond the stomping grounds of her youth. Northwestern University and the city of Chicago were, theoretically, going to provide just that. In practice, an unforeseen global pandemic put a slight damper on her plan.

“Two days before I was moving in, they closed the dorms because of COVID–19,” she says. “And I decided to move to Chicago anyway—which was crazy.” Moving to a new city in the midst of the pandemic is, as Caroline admits, crazy. But, this was only the beginning of Caroline’s college career and the spontaneity that would define it. Her four years in college, including that first year in Chicago, were strung together by her totally uninhibited decision–making—to varying degrees of success, but never with regret.

Caroline is quick to tell about the reality of her experience in Chicago. “When you move to a new city, you’re like ‘Oh, I want to explore, I want to find new things, new coffee shops,’ and you really couldn’t do that,” Caroline says. “It was just very isolating, because I was kind of sitting in an apartment by myself every day.”

So, as the snow melted and spring of 2021 reared its freshly green head, it was time to say goodbye to the windy city and come back home for a bit. In the spring of her first year, Caroline decided to transfer to Penn and start anew in the city that raised her. Her great Chicagoan experiment, however, was far from a failure;

she learned the city to the best of her ability, developing a hope to one day return, and, of course, became a deep–dish aficionado.

“I feel like Chicago deep–dish is not a meal, it’s an event,” she explains. “When you go, you have to be prepared to eat a lot, a lot of cheese. You probably don’t feel well after, so I feel like it is an event that you have to mark off a night for. It’s not like ‘Oh let’s grab pizza.’” This was clearly an event with which she had become well–acquainted.

Caroline started her college journey in an entirely different place than where she’s ending it, literally and figuratively. Along the cross–country return back to Philly, she also dropped her original neuroscience major for something that lied far outside of the STEM scope.

“When I transferred, I wanted to have a reason for transferring,” she says, beginning to explain her major switch. “Secondly, because I’m a little indecisive, I didn’t really know what I wanted to do.” So Caroline opted for PPE, which felt unique at Penn and casted a wide net of subjects, giving her both her justification and a chance for exploration. But, Caroline would end up broadening her horizons even further, pursuing a business economics and public policy minor through the Wharton School.

But a total academic 180 was not the only life change Caroline experienced. Her college career is chock–full of non–sequiturs in the pursuit of discovering fun and passion. A large part of that feat was using misfortune as means of changing her future. At least, that’s how she got into tap dancing.

“My second night at Penn, I slipped on the stairs and I fell,” she says. “I basically couldn’t walk for a while. I knew I wanted to audition for a dance group and the only thing I could do was move my feet. And so, I auditioned for [Soundworks Tap Factory].” The rest—multiple performances, meeting her best friend, and two semesters as president of the group—was history. But Caroline’s time on the stage was far from just the clicks and clacks of tap shoes.

A theater–kid throughout high school with charmingly naive childhood dreams of Broadway, Caroline decided to try her hand at theater in college, too. After participating in Cabaret in the fall of her junior year, she was sure she was one and done. But, rather impulsively, she decided that she wanted to do it all over again her final semester at Penn.

So there Caroline found herself, in her final weeks of her senior year of college, imitating the lives of ‘80s high school students. As part of the ensemble cast of Quadramics Theatre Company’s Heathers: The Musical, she played a student council member, one of the many stereotypical roles that define the satirical show.

But an ensemble part in Heathers wasn’t the only last–minute excursion Caroline embarked upon. “Everyone has this opinion that second semester of senior year, you should wind down and have fun. And I was like ‘It’s still a semester!’” she laughs. This mentality led to a successful run for Undergraduate Assembly and over a hundred new Beli ratings.

“A mission of mine is to try as many coffee shops as possible. And I feel like there’s so many restaurants I’ve written down like ‘Oh, I want to go here,’’’ she says. “I feel like now that I’m leaving, I’ve made it a mission to try them all.” Her latest recommendation? “Mr. Rabbit. That’s my new obsession.”

Caroline’s sprint to the finish line ends at a future in New York City—a future of dollar pizza slices and Broadway show raffles. Once a pre–law hopeful, Caroline has ditched the pre–professional track. Maybe she’ll go to law school in a few years, if for nothing else than to pursue an interest in restorative justice. Or, she’ll get into climate policy. Perhaps, even, she’ll finally fulfill her childhood dream and star on Broadway … or take an understated role in the ensemble. Regardless, she’s looking forward to exploring another new city and the many avenues she has left to pursue in her journey. Nothing has stopped her before — Caroline knows she has plenty of time to figure it out. k

07. Jo Armstrong

INTERVIEWED

BY

CLAIRE KIM

Architecture, music, sewing, and sports, Jo Armstrong does it all

"Getting to know people from all spheres of life and university places and backgrounds and interests really makes you relate [to them ] on a more fundamental level"

Jo Armstrong (C '24) is the kind of person you want on your team. Jo may be known as one of the best players on Penn’s Varsity Volleyball team, but off the court she’s living out her Hannah Montana lifestyle as a seamstress, artist, and die–hard music lover. Jo is a kaleidoscope of passion, creativity, and dedication to her craft.

Before the genesis of Jo’s creative identity, she was a Penn athlete first and foremost. Early mornings were spent on the court and in the gym. While other Penn students galavanted from party to party, Jo was at weekend volleyball games. Despite the overwhelming demands of D1 athletics, Jo found time to explore her passions and identity outside of her sport.

“I kind of always say that I actually am really thankful for COVID just because I got to explore myself outside of volleyball, which was something that I really didn’t have the time or like energy to do previously in my life,” Jo says. Since her childhood, her afternoons and weekends were full of practicing and perfecting her sport. She would go to one practice after another when school ended, hit her homework at 10 p.m., and repeat. When COVID restrictions hit, Jo was forced to find other ways to fill time.

One hobby came from close to home. Jo’s grandmother was an avid sewer, and had made all of Jo’s childhood Halloween costumes. Jo always had bragging rights for the self–appointed title of “Most Unique, Elaborate Costume.” When her grandmother gifted a 12–year–old Jo a sewing machine her creativity flourished.

“During COVID I was kind of sewing a bunch of clothes and kind of just figuring out how to make my own patterns and just creating different garments that were unique,” Jo says. To this day, Jo will never show up to a party without being dressed to the theme. For her twenty–first birthday party, Jo wore a hand–sewn cake dress, complete with candles and lace–frilled tiers. This past semester, Jo even designed a clothing collection that The WALK featured in print. “It was incredibly exciting,” she beams.

Another creative outlet took shape in music. Freshman year, Jo joined Jazz and Grooves, a branch of SPEC that organizes a few concerts each semester to introduce the Penn and greater Philadelphia community to up–and–coming artists. The group allowed her to explore her artistic and musical side, and it quickly became a way to channel her love of music in college. She later became director of the group, bringing artists like Leith Ross and Indigo De Souza (her personal favorites) to perform at Penn.

COVID didn’t only reshape Jo’s passions. Coming into Penn, Jo’s goals were vaguely sports–centered. “During that time in my life, I probably just would have said that my goals were volleyball–oriented. I probably would have told you that like I would love to start,” she laughs. But after a year spent detached from the sport, the Jo that came to Penn was more interested in discov-

ering her passions, not her athletic goals.

But that doesn’t mean she’s not proud of her time on the volleyball team. Jo said that of her time at Penn, she is most proud of “getting through” the four seasons of volleyball. Her original goal of becoming a starting player didn’t pan out, which was disappointing because it was such a visible marker of success on the team. But she still worked up to starting a few games by senior year. And she is “really proud of [herself] for pushing through that struggle and really allowing myself to dedicate my time and effort to my teammates these past four years.”

Still, Jo wonders what her years at Penn might’ve looked like if she’d pivoted earlier. “I might have chosen more of a fine arts track. Growing up I was always really interested in painting and drawing, art and architecture.” Jo’s craving for creative outlets that challenged her led her to an architecture minor her freshman year, and figure painting classes. She started painting again her first year, which makes her feel “wonderful.”

But Jo’s world of wonder extends beyond her creative endeavors. Her people are her family; her teammates, friends, roommates. She’s grateful to the COVID years for helping her beat the stereotype that athletes only hang out with other athletes. “I feel really thankful that I had that freshman spring to kind of branch out and meet people who were non athletes that were more similar to me,” Jo muses. They’re her “chosen friends,” she says.

Jo lives with all those chosen non–athletes, which she loves. “Getting to know people from all spheres of life and university places and backgrounds and interests really makes you relate on a more fundamental level.” But that’s not to say she doesn’t love her volleyball teammates as well. She calls them her family—the sheer amount of time and bonding has created a bond unlike any other. “You really get to cultivate super real and authentic relationships, which is super unique, especially in university.”

As for the future—that ball hasn’t quite landed. Jo’s still figuring out her career plans after Penn. “It’s all kind of up in the air,” which has caused a bit of stress. But it’s also the place where Jo envisions a true fusion of her passions. She’d always been drawn to marketing, and wondered if sports marketing might be for her. “I think that if I could kind of combine that creativity of marketing that I see with this, like, athletics world that I am very comfortable in. That would be really rewarding and ultimately successful for me,” she says.

For all that Jo follows her heart when it comes to higher artistic callings, her love for her team, her family (chosen and otherwise) is enormous. Without her teammates, “I don’t think I would have been able to complete the four years. I did it for my team and to be with them.” And her chosen friends from freshman spring “are still [her] best friends to this day.”k

08. David Feng

INTERVIEWED BY NORAH RAMI

BY WEINING DING

Hiking, fyfshing, skiing—David Feng is quite literally climbing his way to the top of the world

PHOTO

Fly fishing all comes down to physics: in normal fishing, the lure is weighed down with the bait, so it’s much easier to cast out into the water. But with fly fishing, all the weight is carried in the line. It’s a lot like a whip, explains David Feng (E ‘24), breaking down the mechanics of fly fishing with a preciseness usually reserved for an engineering lecture. But when it comes down to the reason for why fly fishing, there’s not much science to it. “Fly fishing is just more fun,” David laughs. “That was like the gateway drug.”

Walking from Locust Walk to the tables by ARCH, David—outfitted in sunglasses and a Patagonia pullover— looks ready for a hike on a perfect spring day, carrying his REI nalgene covered in national park stickers.

Originally from the Bay Area, David is an engineer studying computer science. He’s also a part of Hack4Impact, an organization that makes software for nonprofits. After school hours, you’ll find him carving slopes with Penn Ski, finding new running trails along the Schuylkill, or conquering boulders in the Wissahickon. On a nice day like this, simply put: David Feng is somewhere outdoors.

“My original goal for college was, ‘Let’s do what everyone does: study hard, go find a job, have a good social life, blah, blah, blah. But at the same time, I didn’t realize that you can accomplish those same goals [and] also be able to explore different parts of new interests as well.”

David’s freshman year started off stuck inside. Because of the pandemic, his first year was online, which gave him plenty of free time to kill. Already an outdoorsman, the combination of low gas prices and little traffic allowed him to drive around and explore the Bay. “I got really into outdoor activities—that became a center point in my life, more so than school was, to be honest,” he says. Some days, he would wake up at 5 a.m. to drive over to the beach for fly fishing, or up to the mountains for trail running before coming back for his first physics class at 9 a.m.

David’s time in nature made him realize that he loved being surrounded by the outdoors, but it also made him realize the beauty present in his own backyard. He points out that outdoor adventure sports are usually associated with the most remote and beautiful places, like Wyoming or Chamonix, France; but no longer able to travel to Yosemite and Lake Tahoe as he once did, COVID–19 forced him to find hidden gems nearby.

“There was like a seed planted before. I always liked being outside, but I didn’t realize until college that one, it was so important to me,” says David. “No matter where you end up going, you can always find good little places that mean a lot to you outdoors that are beautiful and make you stronger by nature.”

It’s a mindset he brought with him when he relocated to Philadelphia post–COVID–19. After all, Philadelphia is no Yosemite. The mountains and beaches David once frequented are far and few in between. Still, David has scoped out spots to trail run, fly fish, ski, and even rock climb.

“Philadelphia is not known as the best rock climbing spot in the world. But some of my friends and I, over the past few years, have found really little good pockets and places near the Wissahickon or even along the Schuylkill Avenue trail that have some outdoor climbing, good places to enjoy nature and enjoy the outdoors, even while being within the city,” he

says. “That gave me a really good perspective on how to still be able to find those little gems of beautiful places, even if you’re in a really urban area.”

On campus, David shares his passion for the outdoors as a PennQuest leader, a title he wears proudly even outside of the pre–orientation program. In fact, when he found out that I, too, had done PennQuest, he immediately asked for my leaders’ names and listed off the top of his head half of the members of my freshman year group.

There was like a seed planted before. I always liked being outside, but I didn’t realize until college that one, it was so important to me,” says David.

“No matter where you end up going, you can always find good little places that mean a lot to you outdoors that are beautiful and make you stronger by nature.

leading backpacking trips. It’s about having vulnerable conversations with freshmen about their fears and hopes for college.

Between the responsibilities of caring for freshmen on the trail and rallying the troops, being PennQuest leader brought David out of his own shell. “It also did teach me to be able to like let loose a little bit and not be as uptight as I was in high school,” he says, “to be able to have more fun and, like, put myself out there more than I would have otherwise been able to do.”

Right now, David’s favorite outdoor activities are trail running, fly fishing, rock climbing, and skiing—the last a passion he particularly honed while part of Penn Ski, surrounded by like–minded passionate athletes. After graduation, he’s hoping to add surfing to his crown when he moves back to the West Coast to work in software in Seattle. The topic of his future job quickly shifts to an excited explanation of the geography of Seattle— the Cascades to the east, Mount Rainier in the south, and 50 different lakes within a 30–minute drive.

“There’s a really funny stereotype of a lot of engineers, specifically software engineers doing things like going to the climbing gym after work and moving to places like the Bay Area and Seattle and Denver and Austin and Salt Lake and all these places. I’m totally guilty of that stereotype to some degree,” laughs David, calling himself soon–to–be “Weekend Warrior.” But the intersection of his passion for the outdoors and his background in engineering isn’t just limited to the superficial. As he points out, a problem set and a camping trip aren’t quite so different.

“So [with] your harder engineering, like lots of software, you see a problem and [you’ve] got to figure out how to dissect it really well; break it down to its core components and solve each subproblem by itself. That’s more or less what engineers do for a living,” says David. “And when you’re planning trips in the outdoors, it’s a very similar problem. Here’s this big goal I want to accomplish, like: ‘I want to hike 80 miles a week.’ Then, you have to break down each day, like: How are you going to eat food?”

David reflects that his post–college clarity of prioritizing outdoor spaces in his career decision would surprise his younger self. He figured that, like his immigrant parents, he would have chosen to prioritize opportunity. But his time at Penn has allowed him to value the importance of nature in his life. “Being in a city that’s farther away from the outdoor spaces, it would take a toll on me,” he says.

Unlike the traditional PennQuest experience, however, David’s camping trip was entirely online during what was affectionately named “ZoomQuest.” Still, when he got back to campus in the spring, the pre–orientation program organized a day hike in the Poconos where he made friends he still has today.

“Being outdoors with literally anyone can make you really, really good friends with them within a single day, which is crazy,” says David, reflecting on his decision to join PennQuest as a leader the subsequent year. “There’s this hugely transformative and magical power of being in the outdoors with other people that makes you make people really close, really tight.” Being a PennQuest leader isn’t just about

In the next step of his journey, David is excited about the prospect of balancing his passion for the outdoors and career ambitions. “I would love to go out every weekend if I can—find good conditions to go out and backcountry ski or trail run or backpack, sleep in the back of my car if I need to. And then come back and have a good time at work afterwards, too,” says David. “I couldn’t imagine myself doing that when I was in high school. But right now, that’s a very real possibility.”

After our conversation, I confide in David that he inspired me to go for a run, despite my looming Google Calendar full of final essays. It’s such a perfect day that it’s impossible to resist the temptation. Work, as David points out, can get done when the sun sets. He gives me a recommendation for a running trail before ducking into Huntsman Hall to finish up some work in prospect of a fly fishing trip this week. k

09. Rodrigo Veiga da Cunha

INTERVIEWED BY NATALIA CASTILLO

All roads led back to Penn for Rodrigo Veiga

da Cunha

PHOTO BY WEINING DING

Sitting in the backseat of an Uber, static radio waves in the air, Rodrigo Veiga da Cunha (C ‘24) heard the news of the first COVID–19 cases in Brazil. Unlike our other Penn10 interviewees, Rodrigo knew a pre–COVID–19 Penn when he started college in the fall of 2019. As any student who faced the first waves of COVID–19 in college can tell you how the story goes. A week of spring break turned into a month—and suddenly childhood bedrooms were classrooms. By spring, COVID–19 was

In the south of Brazil, Rodrigo’s home, the pandemic struck especially hard for his family. As healthcare professionals, they were forced to step back from work almost immediately on account of their age and high–risk status. It was then that Rodrigo informed his pre–major advisor that he would not be returning to school that fall semester. Over just weeks, he went from the bustling energy of Penn’s campus to his childhood home in Brazil, and ultimately stepped away from school to support his family and preserve the years he had left in his Penn experience from the unpredictability of COVID–19.

“It was kind of weird because for most of 2020, the only income in my house was coming from me,” Rodrigo recalls. Although his gap year between freshman and sophomore year was laden with adult responsibilities, that summer he luckily already had an internship lined up through Penn’s Undergraduate Research and Mentorship program. He spent his summer, cloistered in his childhood home, researching the Brazilian economy, hyperinflation, and International Monetary Fund interventions. As the world stagnated around him, Rodrigo did what he could to propel himself intellectually forward, wading through the muddy waters of personal and academic uncertainty against the backdrop of global uncertainty. That summer solidified his desire to study economics and political science—but he certainly didn’t have that academic conviction from the start

Like most other freshmen, traumatized by high school math classes, Rodrigo was dead set on never taking math at Penn. He recalls telling his pre–major advisor before freshman year, “I don’t really care what happens—just help me never take a math class.” (As someone who has gone through the trials of tribulations of the Penn Math department, he was right to be afraid). Despite his teenage maxims, five years later, Rodrigo is preparing to graduate with a double—major in economics and political science with a minor in math. He learned to love the quantitative disciplines, even if they didn’t always love him back. While few people would say that the pandemic served them well, for Rodrigo, the radical change in pace, place, and passion did stem from his wildly unique Penn experience. He returned to campus from his leave of absence in the fall of 2021, ready to immerse himself in his studies once more and recon-

But just as Rodrigo was hitting his academic and social stride once again, one spring day, he fractured his foot playing pick–up soccer. His friends rushed him to Penn Presbyterian Medical Center and learned that night that he had a Lisfranc fracture. “I stayed [at the hospital] for six or seven hours … at

midnight, a doctor came back to me and said, ‘Yeah man, you have to have [a] surgery.’” Rodrigo was gobsmacked. “I’m like, ‘What do you mean? Like at most, I broke my foot … there’s no way I need surgery for this.’ I was definitely in denial.” Saddled with the shocking news, he couldn’t even return to his house on Sansom Street—he wouldn’t be able to walk up the three flights of stairs to get to his room. Rodrigo spent the next few days at a friend’s place while figuring out how to get home for surgery in Brazil in order to recover with his family’s support.

Before he knew it, Rodrigo was submitting a request for another semester’s leave. The path that COVID–19 tore through like a tornado was once again had to be repaved. A major surgery later, with six screws in his feet and the scars to show for it, Rodrigo emerged from the injury relatively healthy, and lives to tell the tale to those who can bear a bit of gore. Just as he begins to show me old photos of his post–operation foot, fitted with multiple screws and a metal plate, the clouds open up and release a smattering of spring rain on us—even the gods were displeased at the sight of his mangled foot. Not all stories are meant to be coupled with visual aids.

At this point, I’m certain you’re sympathizing with Rodrigo’s story to the nth degree—he traversed perhaps the most treacherous paths throughout his Penn career. But despite his setbacks of dramatic proportions, Rodrigo doesn’t dwell on what could have been or lament his tragic chronology of events. From a pandemic–induced pause to fractures that forced further academic absence, Rodrigo believes that the student and individual he is now is a direct product of the unbelievable challenges he faced.

Rodrigo walks with scars to this day, but in the process of recovery, he reconnected with his now–girlfriend whilst home in Brazil and upon his return, became a shepherd and mentor for Brazilian newcomers. With the power of retrospective reflection, Rodrigo is honest about the pressure from Penn’s pre–professional culture. Those expectations often press students to have their majors, career path, and salaries planned by the time they hit Locust Walk. Rodrigo steered clear of this stereotype early on. “I was always open saying, ‘I have no idea’ [what I will do].”

“My trajectory helped me be a little bit more comfortable with [uncertainty] in the sense that I have plans, but I don’t feel like I have to stick to like one specific path. And in the past few years, I kind of learned that for me at least, the best way to plan things ahead is to leave a few doors open,” Rodrigo confesses. Throughout the trials and tribulations of the past five years, he has learned to expect the unexpected.

When reflecting on his long–term post–graduate plans, Rodrigo hopes to one day be able to return to Brazil, utilizing his degree to give back to his own community. “I’ve called several places home, but [Brazil] is where I feel like my people are. I see myself as someone using everything that I’ve learned [at Penn] and helping out back there. I feel like I would let myself down a little bit if I kind of forgot about my country, and just made my entire life here [in the United States].”

While each of our Penn10 interviewees carries the legacy of COVID–19 through their college careers, none have had quite the whirlwind of chaos and uncertainty that has pervaded Rodrigo’s college career.

My trajectory helped me be a little bit more comfortable with [uncertainty] in the sense that I have plans, but I don’t feel like I have to stick to like one specific path. And in the past few years, I kind of learned that for me at least, the best way to plan things ahead is to leave a few doors open.

Despite the lamentable challenges he faced from pandemics to surgery–demanding injuries, Rodrigo remains a beacon of optimism. He remarks, “It’s cool to look back and see how much of the things that I didn’t know were going to work out or not actually ended up working out, and not because I saw things clearly … it’s the way life is; stuff works itself out.”

For those incessantly checking LinkedIn and Handshake, just know that the post–graduate landscape seems immeasurably less intimidating when there are students like Rodrigo who have excelled through the most challenging of tribulations. Find comfort in knowing that no matter what, “you’re going to survive the next day, the next assignment, [and] the next job hunt.” k

10. Luke Gooding

INTERVIEWED BY ISAAC POLLOCK

Through a pandemic, a gap year, and four years through the Penn ringer, Luke pivoted majors while popping and locking on the Onda Latina stage.

PHOTO BY JEAN PARK

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 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.” k