Senior column by Ben Lerner | It ain't no lie

Saying bye bye bye to Penn

By Ben Lerner 05/16/15 2:20pm

The month preceding graduation is filled with finales. But sometimes an especially climactic event, like Final Toast, feels too surreal to process, so it doesn’t even feel like an emotional milestone. It mostly just felt drunk.

Maybe it will hit me in Franklin Field. Or after the fact. But all I know is while I ugly-cried at the end of every summer at my sleepaway camp, I haven’t felt much at all leading up to what is arguably the biggest transition of my life.

Why? For one thing, there’s not really time. Seniors are simultaneously attempting to finish what may be their last coursework ever. (High school senioritis has nothing on this lack of motivation.) They’re also trying to live it up in their final college weeks and complete a social “bucket list.” Some are finalizing job offers and signing leases.

They also tell us to make the most of our final days here, so in an effort to savor, we bury the full implications of our impending departure. On the flip side, it’s hard to live in the moment when we are bombarded — from peers and our own thoughts — with questions about the future.

Perhaps my lack of raw feelings is rooted in the unknown. Even if you have a job, postgraduate life is abstractly alluring and daunting — it’s not like getting on the bus home from camp, knowing another school year is looming.

We’ve been in school for the last 17-odd years. For many of us, this is a wrap on academia. That’s kind of incomprehensible.

Personally, I’m cool with saying sayonara to the school part. (Though it is surreal that I may not step foot in another classroom until, like, my kid’s parent-teacher conferences.) I’m even at semi-peace with moving on from the social environment where the promise of life-changing experiences and incredible friendships has proven just as true as the stereotype of pre-professionalism.

But being okay with ending schooling and not having another year doesn’t make the sheer transition easy to grasp.

In fact, writing this column doesn’t seem that momentous, even though it’s my final contribution to the DP, and my year as Editor-in-Chief of Under The Button defined my Penn career. (Having Wawa retweet the blog’s “100 Greatest Things About Wawa” is more fulfilling than turning in a thesis, I’d wager.)

When I was a freshman, former Street Editor-in-Chief Jessica Goodman wrote her DP senior column as a list summing up her Penn career. It stuck with me in ways your average BuzzFeed listicle rarely does. (There weren’t gifs.) So, even if I’m not confident in my (lack of) graduation feelings, there are some more specific things I am sure of, a la Jess, in list form:

• No matter your major, take a three-hour creative writing seminar at some point.

• Sometimes you don’t have to work hard or play hard. Stay in with friends, TV and wine. It’s as recharging as 12 hours of sleep.

• Treat yourself to 12 hours of sleep sometimes.

• GrubHub when you’re hungover, but if it’s nice-ish out, there’s no need for delivery.

• Once you don’t have a meal plan, occasionally get swiped into Commons. Absence seriously makes the heart grow fonder.

• Frat parties and downtowns get old. House parties with good people and bad booze don’t.

• But I’m leaving Bankers and Natty behind at Penn. (Don’t quote me on Franzia.)

• Early 2000s pop throwbacks make better party playlists than EDM.

• #NoNewFriends is stupid. I probably made more friends senior year than sophomore and junior year combined.

• Go to SPEC speaker events and do Q&A — it’s nerve-wracking, but you get to meet (not just see) celebrities! Ellie Kemper, Eva Longoria and Retta would recognize me on the street.

• Read UTB, Street and the DP — and give feedback both positive and negative. Editors work hard and are your classmates. Passive-aggressive Facebook statuses are less constructive than sincerely reaching out.

• On that note, it’s 2015, so Facebook exists for event invitations. Preachy statuses belong on Twitter as rants. You can also interact with celebs there.

• How well liked you are isn’t proportional to how well liked your Instagrams are.

• Put your phones in the middle of the table at BYOs. Try to conserve Generation MeMeMe for when you’re alone and procrastinating, not socializing.

• Not every discussion with your friends should be about work and extracurriculars. Ask people how they’re doing. Listen.

• Seek out dogs. There are not enough.

• Elite groups that define social capital at Penn will mean little to nothing postgrad. A rejection from something on campus does not define your future.

• I’m a hypocrite and learned most of these the hard way.

Penn is overwhelming, competitive, rewarding and transformative. It’s full of diverse, brilliant, inspiring humans. To all of them — and especially to the Upsilon Tau Beta bloggerhood — I send my undying love and light.

BEN LERNER is a College senior from Hastings-on-Hudson, N.Y. He is a former editor-in-chief of Under the Button. His email address is ben.m.lerner@gmail.com.

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