COLUMN: Swimming in acronym soup

From Emily Lieff's, "Sassy Peach," Fall '99 From Emily Lieff's, "Sassy Peach," Fall '99Last week I bumped into a friend of mine on Locust Walk. I asked her, very innocently, if she would like to join me for dinner. Her answer: "I can't, I'm soooo busy! -- I have a PPE UAB meeting until 5, then a RAB meeting followed by a UA meeting where we will discuss SAC funding. It was then that I realized that your time at Penn is no longer defined by As, Bs and Cs, but by UAs, RABs and SACs. This begs the question: Is Penn so short on cash that they have to abbreviate everything? Probably not, but for some reason Penn students seem to have a tendency to define ourselves by our abbreviations rather than by our background, interests or experience. Ask anyone at Penn who they are, and undoubtedly you will be bombarded by a virtual alphabet of answers. Academics have taken second place to filling one's resume with the various acronyms associated with extracurricular activities. I have plenty of friends who skip class for SCUE meetings and put their UABs in front of their GPAs. Apparently, there is no limit on the number of extracurriculars some people try to take on. In high school, many of us managed to juggle 12 extracurricular clubs, play a varsity sport, star in the spring musical and serve as editor-in-chief of our school papers. In fact, it was this diversity that got most of us accepted to Penn in the first place. After coming here, though, we each found ourselves to be a very small fish in a very big pond, unable to conquer every opportunity that Penn had to offer. Nonetheless, in our effort to fit in as freshman, we poured over the lists of extracurriculars, read all the signs posted on Locust Walk and tried to engage in as many activities as possible in the hopes of finding our niche. Then, when that didn't fill the need to fit in, many students resorted to the ultimate letter-getter, the Greek system, becoming Alphas, Thetas and Omegas when the English alphabet ran out. As any fraternity or sorority member can tell you, these letters often define people. Whichever three are emblazoned on your sorority sweatshirt immediately conjure up images of who your friends are, what you must do in your spare time and where you'll be on Saturday night. This is not unique to the Greek system, though. It seems that identification by letters has spread to all parts of the University. We define each other by the clubs that we belong to and the abbreviations in the "extracurricular" section of our resumes. Eventually, we even begin to define ourselves in this way. This is a dangerous practice. Chances are, people in the real world won't have any clue what RAB stands for -- and probably won't care. Does that mean that we lose our identities as soon as we step off of Penn's campus? Personally, I'm starting to get a complex about my lack of abbreviations. Does this mean that I don't have an identity at all? If my schedule isn't filled with SHAB and OTB rehearsals and the occasional PAC meeting, does that mean I am not truly part of Penn society? Will people still respect me? Of course, now that I'm a DP columnist, that gives me two more letters to add to my persona. I'm not exactly comfortable being summed up by just two letters, or even three or four. How can a whole life be summed up by acronyms? Too many of us let these clubs, committees and advisory boards take over our lives. We are no longer satisfied with one or two interests. Instead, we try to spread ourselves too thin, becoming a member of any club that we can pack into our schedules or that we think may help shape who exactly we are. For those of us seniors whose time here is winding down, the quest for additional abbreviations is coming to a screeching halt. It's too late to change our identities; no matter how many more meetings we attend, most of the damage has been done. We had better be happy with who we are. As for me, right now I'm concentrating on gaining only two more letters -- B.A.