Coming Around Again

So, this is not my first time at Penn. Having gone here as an undergrad made my decision to return complicated on many levels, yet natural on others. I love Philadelphia (more to come on that in future posts, I'm sure) and will always have warm feelings for this campus. Now that I'm back, it feels great to be home.

Penn has changed in so many ways since I first visited in April of 1997. The 3600 block of Walnut Street, which now contains the Penn Bookstore, The Inn at Penn, Cosi, and Urban Outfitters, among other things, was a parking lot. The site of Huntsman Hall (where The Wharton School is headquartered) was a strip mall, anchored by the old Penn Bookstore, the PennCard Center, and a music store called Vibes. (I bought a Wham! CD there when I was a freshman.) Houston Hall was just a series of corridors, and had a Burger King, a T-shirt store, and various other tiny businesses. The College House system was just in its infancy, so no one knew anything about Hamilton, Harnwell, and Harrison. They were High Rise North, High Rise East, and High Rise South.

I suppose that change is part of being a world class institution. Sometimes, I walk around campus and long for the old days, but the benefit is that I've been fortunate enough to have two different Penns in my life. Penn's campus still has more than enough to remind me of my past, but there is always a forward movement to remind me that times change...