Partying the weeknight away, grad student style

There's a common belief around Penn that graduate students have no campus social life. But just try walking past Houston Hall on a Thursday night. Each week, hundreds of grad students gather in the Hall of Flags from 6 to 9 p.m., drinking beer, mingling and, on occasion, dancing the night away to such classics as "The Thong Song." These weekly grad "blenders," as they've come to be called, are co-sponsored by the Graduate and Professional Student Assembly and the Graduate Students Associations Council. They draw students from all 12 graduate schools. The free happy hour experience includes food, soft drinks, beer, music provided by a DJ and -- let's not forget -- the good company of fellow students. Last year, Kyle Farley, current GAPSA chairman and Eric Eisenstein, president of GSAC, proposed the idea for these blenders. The first one was held at the end of February, and they continued weekly throughout the spring. The event continues to become more popular. The average weekly attendance, approximately 600 last year, is now closer to 800, and over 1,000 students turned out for the first blender of the year. The blenders are currently free for all grad students, who are simply asked to show their PennCard at the door. "For me, the GAPSA blender is a chance to unwind at the end of the week, after classes all week. It's a chance to see people and make plans for the weekend, and it's also a good chance to get a free meal every once in a while," said Matt Carlson, a first-year Annenberg School for Communication student. The blenders, which cost approximately $4,000 per week, are being funded primarily by GAPSA. GSAC, which has a significantly smaller budget, also contributes. GAPSA and GSAC are now in the process of looking for corporate sponsorship to fund the weekly blenders, in order to allow overworked grad students to continue to eat, drink and be merry on someone else's tab. According to GAPSA and GSAC officials, the primary goal of the blenders is to provide a bridge between the various schools and create a real sense of community among graduate students. "You can just randomly go up to someone and meet them," third-year Dental student Gina Sajnani said. "Everyone is here to socialize." While some students said they meet and socialize with students from other schools, others reported that the blender scene is actually quite "cliquey," and that groups of friends from the same schools clump together. Still, the get-togethers seem to be a hit. And apparently these weekly gatherings do not fully satisfy the social appetites of Penn's lively grad students. GAPSA also sponsors downtown events. Last Friday, GAPSA threw its first big social of the year at the Loew's PSFS Building at 12th and Market streets. "It's just a lot of work to get it all done, because there's not a whole infrastructure in place at the University level for organizing graduate student life programming," said Cassie Creswell, vice president of student affairs for GSAC. But the work is worth it for Engineering first-year grad student Alex Yang, who summed up his reason for attending the blender by saying, "I was hungry, and I was single."

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