Whittling down Penn Face

Written by Christina Stolz (W); Edited by Juliette Santulin (W’25)

Each Penn student seems to have procured their very own version of Hermoine’s time-turner: they're taking numerous classes and excelling at them, are involved in multiple extracurricular activities, have time to go out partying, have secured an amazing summer internship, and seem to know just about everyone. 

With the Penn Face we’ve assumed and the perfect atmosphere it has constructed, it's sometimes hard to not fall for the facade and stay grounded in reality—everyone is continuously messing up, doesn’t know what path they are following, and is actually struggling to ‘keep up’.

Staying grounded in reality is made harder with Penn’s environment. The campus helps create a territory for the ‘Penn Bubble’. If I leave seven minutes before my class I can make it down the high-rise stairs and cross the bridge to be in my seat at Huntsman before the professor begins the lesson. The Penn bubble encapsulates and binds your entire everyday life here; along with dorms and classes, libraries and dining halls (we should mention restaurants or take-out chains knowing how despised the dining halls are) are also all in the same area.

Even our social life is latched onto Penn and its campus. Staying true to our reputation as the social ivy, inboxes are always flooded with events and there is always something to go to. This completes the circle; our whole life is now drawn within a few miles and even within these boundaries, a majority of us won’t set foot into most of the buildings during our time at Penn. 

Penn Face is constantly being inserted all around us because we are constantly on Penn’s campus. Even more so, we are constantly surrounded by people. There’s little escape from that, especially if you have a roommate. It takes a conscious decision to get away from Penn for a while because there’s an overwhelming feeling that we always need to be doing something productive with our time.

For those who could not join Wharton Women at their annual dinner, the CFO of Morgan Stanley, Sharon Yeshaya, had a take that inspired quite a few Wharton Women. She talked about how school constructs an environment you can be perfect in, yet in the real world, you will mess up numerous times and have to learn to adapt to this. It’s easy to forget that life won’t always be like it is, here at Penn, and it won’t define yours forever. 

Penn Face—it’s everywhere and we do occasionally hear about some people’s stories and experiences with it. Maybe it even affects you! But we have to remember that Penn Face really is just a mask and that everyone struggles with their workload, anxiety about the future, and life in general. To erode some of the Penn Face mask and the anxiety around it, we have asked the Penn community to share some of their struggles. We want to thank everyone for being so willing to share their stories and pass on their feelings to their fellow students! We hope by sharing their experiences we can show some of these struggles and you have something to come back to that will remind you that you’re not alone!