Tuesday, September 5, 2023
By Michele W. Berger
Photos by Brooke Sietinsons and Ta’Liyah Thomas
Top row (from left to right): First-years Denise Sanchez from Philadelphia; Rishi Bhandari of Nutley, New Jersey; and Maryam Casares of Houston. Bottom row (from left to right): Kana Unigame from Yokohama, Japan; Angelie Rodriguez from New York City; and Amelia Kristen from Vancouver, British Columbia.
Denise Sanchez does her best thinking at night. “I’m excited to see how Penn will fuel what I call my midnight ideas,” says the first-year from Philadelphia. “I can’t wait to see what ideas come about.”
Sanchez is part of the Integrated Studies Program, curriculum and programming for College first-years who are Benjamin Franklin Scholars. She and the other ISP students moved into Hill House on August 21, part of a week-long process that saw more than 2,400 first-year students from 96 countries settle into Penn’s 13 college houses.
“It feels surreal to be here,” says Maryam Casares of Houston, who also moved into Hill House.
At the Exploration Expo on Shoemaker Green the following Monday, Casares, Sanchez, and their classmates had an opportunity to learn from Penn Arts & Sciences faculty representing 28 departments and numerous programs about all the College has to offer. Quayshawn Spencer, Robert S. Blank Presidential Associate Professor of Philosophy, was there on behalf of the Department of Philosophy. “The students would ask me, ‘What is philosophy?’ and ‘What can I do with philosophy?’” he says. “My answer was, ‘Everything.’”
Paul Sniegowski, Steven A. Levin Family Dean, loved hearing that type of exchange. “Students coming in are widely interested in all kinds of things,” he says. “It’s up to them to decide what they want to study and do.”
At the Exploration Expo on August 28, College students had the opportunity to mingle and learn about the school’s 28 departments, plus the dozens of majors and programs on offer. “What’s beautiful about this event is that here in a physical set up are so many of the options in the College in the School of Arts & Sciences,” says Paul Sniegowski, Steven A. Levin Family Dean. “It’s a chance for students to connect faces with programs and majors, and just to hang out.”
At the Expo, students got to know some of the School’s faculty and instructors, including (clockwise from top left) Julia Bloch, director of the Creative Writing program; Quayshawn Spencer, Robert S. Blank Presidential Associate Professor of Philosophy; Huda Fakhreddine, Associate Professor of Arabic Literature in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations; and Eleni Katifori, Associate Professor in the Department of Physics & Astronomy.
First-years Lucy Rupertus, Hannah Kim, and Annick S. Lawson-Body at the Exploration Expo, which took place on Shoemaker Green.
