Welcome to the College

Holding the Penn NSO calendar in our hands, my friends and I nervously made it past DRL, onto the large green clearing that was Shoemaker Green. A myriad of tables lined the front of The Palestra, gleaming under the countenance of tablecloths red and blue. People were buzzing with passionate conversation. We had made it to one of the final events on the NSO calendar – Welcome to the College.

When I first filled out my application to Penn, I remembered the word “Major” staring at me through my computer screen. It was only during this fair, amongst the sea of excited students and professors, when I realized the unnecessary weight I had placed on myself.

To call this experience at Welcome to the College a “majors fair” is an understatement – for my friends and I, this was freedom. In conversing with staff and fellow students, I found bountiful intriguing courses, ranging from the art of translating poetry, to the foundations of European thought, to the applications of machine learning in physics. I heard about the fun of research labs whilst sharing a nice lunch; I learnt about the wonder of first-year seminars whilst grabbing a College T-shirt.

The scary word ”major” that had once burdened me turned out to be one of my favorite things about Penn through attending Welcome to the College. We are all multidimensional, and we here can explore all our colorful passions.

I had always mistakenly thought that the world was a maze, with one ‘right’ path I had to find and pursue. Yet, as Penn puts it: we can find a way – or make our own. Now, with Penn in the palm of my hand, the world was my canvas.

- T. Tian