I had people that encouraged me to challenge myself and take risks every day, and that feeling was hard to find anywhere else.

In coming up with a concept for this column, I can easily say I rediscovered my deep admiration for the ability of every columnist I ever edited to come up with compelling topics on a regular basis.

When I was The Daily Pennsylvanian city news editor, I learned not to stop for emergency vehicles unless they gathered in what I nicknamed a “critical mass.” One cop car on the side of the road?

I must have said it a hundred times during my three years as a reporter and editor at The Daily Pennsylvanian. “This sentence has to go.

I like to frame articles by describing images that represent overarching themes of the story. When I think of The Daily Pennsylvanian, I see a certain editor tap dancing down the hall with a Hey Day cane, after we finally got a key source on the record for a student government story — None of us knew he could do that. I remember shivering in an alley in Old City with a group of protestors who were dead set on ending mountain top removal. Or maybe the image I remember most is of a dining hall worker, brow furrowed, spreading a stack of healthcare bills across his dining room table, while he told us he did not make enough to support his ailing wife.

If there’s one thing I learned in four years at Penn and three years at The Daily Pennsylvanian, it’s that truth is subjective. “How can that be?” you may wonder.

I still remember the weekend back in May of my freshman year when I was still sports photo editor.

When I first arrived at Penn, I had decided that the newspaper world was no longer for me. After finishing up a career as a high school journalist, I thought it was time to call it quits and find another calling. But reluctantly, my friends from my Media and Communications residential program dragged me to that very first Daily Pennsylvanian info session. Here I am, three boards later.

Average attendance in major college football has hit its lowest level in over a decade. With schools around the country dealing with issues like student apathy or top notch TV coverage of nearly all games, attendance fell by over 1,000 fans per contest to 44,603, a 2.3 percent decrease according to an ESPN report. The Ivy League, which is not included in this average due to its Football Championship Series status (formerly known as I-AA), also saw a decrease in average attendance at games, going from 9393 to 9040 fans per game.

A “strong-arm” robbery prompted a UPenn Alert on Thursday afternoon.

Engineering junior Josh Pearlstein was seated in the third car of Northeast Regional Train No. 188, which was traveling from Washington, D.C. to New York before it went off the tracks.

Jason Smith, the alleged killer of Perelman School of Medicine student Melissa Ketunuti was found guilty of first-degree murder, arson, and related offenses.

Beth Winkelstein, Professor of Bioengineering and Associate Dean for Undergraduate Education in the School of Engineering and Applied Science, will serve as the new Vice Provost for Education beginning on July 1.

An Amtrak train derailed in Philadelphia en route to New York earlier this evening. Reports indicate that at least 50 people were injured in the crash. The train was going from Washington D.C.

On Thursday, ESPN published an article in which those close to Madison Holleran helped paint a vivid picture of her struggle with mental health, over a year after the Penn freshman committed suicide.

Penn released its yield rate for the Class of 2019 this week, remaining steady around 66 percent.

With graduation coming, it's time for students to pay their final bills at Howard University. But with some unable to make pay, alumni may come to the rescue. Howard President Wayne Frederick sent an email to alumni, asking them to help pay off 180 seniors' debts so they can graduate.  The 180 students' debt totaled around $380,000 and the University has received over $160,000 in the weeks following Frederick's email.  As to how students still owed money, Howard had a policy that allowed students to pay 25 percent of their tuition before the semester and make regular monthly payments during the semester.