As I looked down at my pins, I started thinking about my need to physically display my personality. Why was it so important to me that people could recognize the pride colors on my wrist, the Guatemalan flag on my books, the soy product brand on my bookbag? Thinking back to PrideDay, I realize that this need might not be unique to me.

A rising surveillance state and an already stark decline in privacy points to a future where hardly anything one says or does can be private for long from the extensive gaze of the United States government. Unless we do something about it

As we go to work and take on an ever greater list of responsibilities, from drafting emails to creating presentations to writing memos, it becomes increasingly important to remember that taking professional responsibility is a commitment that we all must honor.

The issue is that we have become so consumed by our own name that we don’t really know who we are. I can’t help but detect a frisson of desperation when the University slathers the Ivy League label on every possible surface. What exactly is under all that Ivy?

As students who spend the majority of our year in this community, it is our responsibility to do something about a pervasive, threatening issue — hunger.

All of us encounter a myriad of decisions every day, whether big or small. From choosing our major or what classes to take to whether or not we should watch just one more episode of Gilmore Girls before going to bed, we all have to make decisions. It would seem that, with so much practice, decision-making should be a skill we have all mastered by now.

Penn is in a position to influence more than the approximately 6,000 smokers on campus. Banning smoking would not only serve as an incentive for these individuals to lead a healthier lifestyle but may also have an effect on our peer institutions that are in need of change just as much as we are.

The lifelike drama of it all is only amplified by its unpredictability. Sports take on grand storylines, featuring a landscape of conflicts and climaxes and heroes and villains to rival any fairy tale. It’s drama that is fundamentally human on one of the largest of stages.

Just know that fulfilling a requirement is not the same as understanding a language or its accompanying culture. Learning the language means little without learning about its people.

Summer is 12 weeks of limited responsibility and people who are just as willing to try new, potentially regrettable things as you are. Take advantage of this, and never be afraid to make some mistakes along the way.

Few blame banks and bank tellers who don’t realize their role as teachers. Their subject of expertise is the credit card system, but their problem is their method of instruction. It is not conducive to the learning style of the average American consumer.

I’ve always struggled to be in one place at a time. In 2009, I unpacked my global baggage into a 9-by-10-foot box in Hill College House. I had a British passport and an American accent. I spoke fluent Chinese, but I wasn’t really Chinese.

I had to hit rock bottom in order to see it. I hadn’t been accepting of my situation before then to understand that all I needed to do was say yes.

“Something” has been tacked on to our beloved millennial moniker, so it’s well worth consideration.

These were the times when I was fully present, living Penn to its fullest in the most unassuming way possible. I was just there, in the moment, because where else would I want to be?

Schoolwork was secondary to adventures, from studying abroad to going across town to get a 4 a.m. cheesesteak. That’s where I learned the most — life lessons, not classroom lessons.

Many of us spend our time in college with an end goal, but I can honestly say, I’m not sure what exactly I was chasing this whole time.