Pressure Cooker

Recently, I was fortunate enough to be invited to attend Penn's PhD Applicants Weekend, the final phase of the PhD application process. I'm not sure I've even mentioned that I applied to the PhD program. It's been interesting playing three simultaneous roles at Penn: alumnus, current student, and prospective student. I've spent a lot of time thinking about whether it is okay to earn three degrees from the same university, but I feel like my undergrad experience here was so entirely different from my GSE experience -- two different worlds that share a campus!

Back to PhD Weekend, though...I was honestly surprised by how fun it ended up being, especially since I was so nervous going into the event. I thought that meeting prospective classmates would be difficult, because I did not want to think about them as competition. They all were really nice, and I hope that I'll have the opportunity to work with all of them in the future. It's sad to think that we won't all be at the same school next year, but the higher ed community is relatively small, so our paths will cross in the future. It definitely felt strange as being at the event as a current student, but knowing all of the faculty members was a comforting feeling. The "conversations" with faculty members were not intense, the formal presentations were very informative, and the rest of the event was very laid back. It served as a great reminder of why I love Penn GSE so much, a reminder that wasn't even really needed...