LETTERS TO THE EDITOR: An honest neighborhood perspective

To the Editor:To the Editor: Although I am not a Penn student or alumna, I picked up the The Daily Pennsylvanian on September 19 and appreciated your editorial "Home in the community." I affirm your stance but take issue with your "grim but livable" description of West Philadelphia. However, the most outstanding benefit of living in West Philadelphia is the friendliness and helpfulness of our neighbors. In July 1995, my husband became critically ill and required major surgery. The neighborhood rallied around us and provided us with transportation, a week of meals, phone calls, visits and a mountain of get-well cards. There is no place on the planet we would rather live. If you would like to know more about our experiences in West Philadelphia, please give us a call. We are listed in the phone book. Carole Marnet West Philadelphia resident Stereotypically wrong To the Editor: If MBA candidates are anything like Wharton undergraduates, the stereotype of Wharton undergraduates in "Why the Wharton School and its students are having an identity crisis" (DP, 10/9/96) is way off the mark. When I met my MBA class of 38 students last Wednesday, the only tie visible in the class room was worn by the investment banker I had invited to address the class. Morris Mendelson Emeritus Finance Professor To the Editor: I would like to respond to "Why the Wharton School and its students are having an identity crisis" (DP, 10/9/96). Wharton should be seen for what it is: a vocational school, just like welding school, trucking school or underwater mining school. We learn formulae and theory, just like folks in welding school learn about, well? welding and stuff. What we do isn't terribly difficult. It just so happens that our "vocation" pays, rightly or wrongly, absurd amounts of cash in some cases (at least until you work out the post-tax dollars earned per hour), which gives it a patina of misplaced glamour. What troubles me most is that it seems like undergraduates, and to a lesser extent, graduate students at Wharton, see the formulae and theory as the end-all and be-all of their existence. I suppose it's a good thing to feel passionate about work, but in my experience, colleagues who couldn't get their mind off work couldn't do so because they had nothing else in their lives. That's not being passionate; that's being dull. The best part of my undergraduate education was gaining knowledge in areas where I had no professional ambitions, just intellectual curiosity. It's a bit sad that four undergraduate years at Wharton are spent learning vocational skills that for the most part can be learned on the job. Tip Kim Wharton Graduate Student