Issue date: 10/2/07 Section: Opinion

There's something quintessentially awful about studying at Penn.

It goes beyond the fact that you're actually expected to do well in an Ivy League school, and it also goes beyond the fact that the amount of work can, at times, be inordinate.

Instead, it's about the cutthroat intensity students adopt to be "competitive," an intensity that is beginning to pollute our social environment. And every year, with ever-decreasing admission rates, it's getting worse.

We're not sleeping, we feel guilty about relaxing and our entire college life is a huge rush to get … somewhere.

A perfect embodiment of the awfulness of studying at Penn is the Huntsman Hall second-floor study lounge.

For those who choose not to participate in the meaningless debauchery of learning for fear that it might interfere with drinking obligations, I would like to illustrate the unforgiving cruelty of having to study at Penn.

It's exam week, and you're partially dead. You stumble through Huntsman Hall's foreboding no-nonsense entrance, feeling like a sleep-deprived turtle. Your entire life is on your back, or at least the important parts: laptop, notebooks, calc book, stat book, econ book, French book, that book, this book, the other book, your roommate's book and a huge pack of assorted pens. Your back hurts, you haven't slept in days and you're desperately clutching your source of caffeine for fear of spilling a precious drop of your last link to the living.

You come to the end of the hall on the second floor and open the door at the end. The silence is so deathly oppressive that you hear someone chewing 50 feet away. You walk through the aisles and to your dismay you're confronted with the all-too-familiar truth of the Huntsman second-floor study lounge: At close to midnight on a Saturday, when most of the country is either sleeping or otherwise enjoying life, the lounge is completely packed.

If not with an actual person at every cubicle, then with a plethora of notes and books that lay claim to the territory in the name of an owner on a coffee run.

I'm sure this kind of cutthroat intensity is not unique to Huntsman Hall - many students at Penn are similarly bonkers - but it illuminates a trend that is all-too-familiar on this campus.

Practically everywhere I've been to study, other than the obvious social scenes (Bucks, Starbucks, a bench on the Walk), bear the same oppressive weight of intensity. Rightfully so, I guess.

After all, we're an Ivy League institution: People didn't get here by going to clown school.

But this intensity is not unique to study spaces: It has pervaded almost every aspect of a Penn student's daily regimen.

If we're not doing homework, we're walking to the library; if we're not walking to the library, we're working out; if we're not working out, we're stressing about our work; if we're not stressing about our work, we're drinking to alleviate the stress; if we're not drinking, we're doing work with an awful hangover.

And on and on in a vicious cycle.

Penn students may be an ambitious, smart and motivated population, but our blessings are becoming critical flaws. We're pushing ourselves to do more work with less sleep and less peace of mind. We've become obsessed with being productive every single moment of our turtle-y lives, and any time we may give ourselves off is only filled with the stress of knowing how much work lies in wait for us.

On Sept. 30, the New York Times ran an article entitled "Don't Worry, Be Students."

In interviewing various college alums, the article wrote that Penn alumni were "likely to cite the friendships they made at school" as the most memorable aspect of their university experience.

Hopefully, it doesn't shock too many people when I say that iPods, textbooks and calculators are not friends, and it would be a pity to miss out on an incredible college experience for a hundredth of a point on your GPA.

Yes, it's important to do well, but at the end of the day we're graduating from Penn. And with or without a 4.0, that's saying something.

And so, reporting directly from a bench on Locust Walk on a gorgeous September afternoon, enjoying the company of friends and sunshine, I can tell you first-hand that life looks distinctly better as a human … and not a turtle.

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Michaela Tolpin is a College sophomore from North Caldwell, N.J. Her e-mail address is
tolpin@dailypennsylvanian.com. Tuesdays with Michaela appears on Tuesdays.

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