EDITORIAL: "Come Aboard, We're Expecting You" (Freshmen Issue)

Take a look through this newspaper and you'll get a peek at the University of Pennsylvania that doesn't appear in admissions brochures or on campus tours. A place with heated conflict and problems crying out to be solved. Hardly perfect -- but on the whole, not a bad place to spend four years. It can be fun, and it can be exasperating. Sometimes it's enlightening, and sometimes it's frightening. But it's always vibrant, always active and always surprising. And it's big. Very, very big. But don't sweat it. You'll get the hang of this place quickly -- most everyone does. In all likelihood, you'll enjoy it. Just remember that this is your life, your college education, your four years at Penn and your $80,000. Or is that $90,000? Make the most of it. Demand a lot of yourself and the environment, both academically and socially. This University is truly what you make it, although it does fight back from time to time. Along the way, we hope The Daily Pennsylvanian can serve as both a guide and confidant. Since you've hopefully been introduced to the University already, allow us to introduce ourselves. We're the University's official student newspaper, although we'd like to make it quite clear from here on out that we're self-incorporated, fund ourselves entirely through advertising and are completely separate and independent from the University. Every weekday morning during classes, about 14,000 copies of this award-winning wonder are distributed free of charge all over campus. You may pick us up for sports scores or for reviews of local music, film and entertainment happenings. We'll provide controversial columns to read over lunch, crossword puzzles to help you survive classes and news on important events and issues at the University such as the articles we've reprinted here. We know you'll want to keep up on all of these issues, since understanding the bureaucracy of a large Ivy League university will be your first priority here -- even above partying or getting good grades. Not! Still, we hope you'll pick up one of our omnipresent -- and did we say award-winning? -- issues each day. Read us, help us out if we need you as a source, and feel free to write nasty letters to the editor if something rubs you the wrong way. The more you participate, the better this newspaper will be, and the better this University will be. And if you're interested in helping put together a newspaper or helping manage the $800,000 budget that funds it, we hope you'll stop by The Daily Pennsylvanian offices when you arrive this fall. We're always looking for new blood (fresh meat) and no experience is required or expected. We'll provide the experience -- an experience like no other on the planet, or at least this side of the Schuykill River. Sort of like attending the University of Pennsylvania.