Ew Penn!

Why are Penn students always getting bad coverage in the news?* It has come to my attention that people online are now denouncing the Whartonites, alluding to Marie Antoinette's downfall with the line "let them eat cake," after a few dumb people in Huntsman Hall (that's the Wharton building) on the balcony started taunting protestors below. Taking into account the fact that you get a certain crowd of people posting their opinions on a site called "Think Progress.org," I am amused by how disgruntled some of those people have responded and how they immediately start blaming or insulting ivy league schools and their spoiled legacy brats. While I do not approve of those students' balcony act, I find it to be obnoxious and misleading when people start pointing the finger at the entire school's population and system and start drawing a difference between the ivy leaguers and the rest of the American population (whatever that means). So here's why people should stop giving us the stink-eye:

1) Financial aid- I believe there's a general decline in legacy students at Penn over the past few years. The general idea is that it doesn't matter how wealthy you are, because the school's going to squeeze as much money out of you as it is able to. So rich kids have to pay more and lower income families get subsidies from the government or school grants.

2) Seriously, most Penn students are working their ass off to find a job or go to grad school. Maybe I'm biased since I'm in the College of Arts and Sciences, and not Wharton, but most people I've spoken to after 3 years are quite passionate about what they do, whether it's starting a business or studying politics. Yeah, ok, there are the few who depend solely on sucking up to people and networking to get through their exams and getting an interview, but I think there's a balance between that sort of corruption (for lack of a better word) and genuine hard work. This is, well, part of life, right?

3) The article fails to specify who those people were, but goes on to talk about how most MBAs go on to earn a six figure income right after graduation, and how the school's connections are filled with the big names on Wall Street, implying that those people ARE going to earn the same amount, and will have the same connections. I think it's silly to assume this much, as it's very likely that those people will find jobs with long hours that pay the same rate as someone who's selling clothes. Everything's relative, and costs in NY are quite expensive.

And because I should be studying right now, I'm going to leave with the following comments:

For all the protestors out there, these are desperate times, but complaining in front of a school won't help. Most college kids are like internet trolls, and will probably say/do things that are hurtful or insulting because they think it's amusing, or because they feel needlessly attacked. Come on, it's not like all the state college kids saints. Oh, and a last note about the legacy students... while I'm not friends with any, I do think they are good for the school- not only because their families give Penn money and Penn can create fun stuff to do (or not :/ ) the students are so dumb, they lower the curve and thus increase my GPA. So yeah, they're important.

*Last year it was about how filthy Penn students are, and how they needed their parents to pay them personal maids to clean after their disgusting frat parties. And the pictures of their hovels were, unfortunately, proof of their general laziness and pure nastiness. NOTE that this is not representative of the entire school population.

Loud boogers

Feeling a bit bitchy right now. One of my roommates had guests over Friday - Sunday, and sharing a dorm with 2 additional strangers (meaning tiny bathroom and kitchen) is taxing, especially when they tend to be of the chatty and cheerful type. The thing that creeps me out the most is that these people assume they can use whatever is around the dorm, who knows if they are wiping their hands on my towel or not blargh! Did I ever mention how much I dislike people sometime? I want to throw them in an icy lake. I mean, how do people usually handle situations like this without looking like the villain? Oh my god, why should I even care, I'm totally going out there and telling them to be quiet, because this is my fucking dorm too.

summer

I spent my summer in a country where sites like Blogspot is blocked *ahem*.

Actually, that's a poor excuse because I had access to a crappy VPN, so if I really wanted to, I could have gone on my blog. Instead, I spent the majority of my VPN access on facebook.

Anyway, something I drew while overseas... the difference between this picture and some previous stuff is that this is done purely on photoshop (no pencil, no scanning), since I didn't have access to a scanner the weekend I started this piece. Inspiration: Fallout 3, WW2, World War Z, and the soundtrack to the cartoon Anastasia.

Cartoons II, college admissions suck!

More political cartoons. They're pretty much all I draw nowadays. Some Founding Father caricatures, including Madison (or maybe Hamilton? I haven't really decided), Ben Franklin, Jefferson, and Washington.

In other news, I had my first interview yesterday. I'm not going to say what I really thought about it, but overall, it wasn't too traumatic- mitigated by the fact that I already have another internship. I'm not trying to brag- I have A TON OF STUFF to learn- but man do I feel relieved.

On a similar topic, I read in the NYT yesterday that prestigious universities are now accepting less and less students. One of the commentators brought up that young people don't need to go to an ivy league school to be successful in life. Generally, this should be true. However, I really wonder if times have changed. The examples people always bring up are previous generations (ie, people above the age of 30), and how they went to state school and then interned in Washington, then got accepted into law school or business school, and now they're a multimillionaire. Two things bother me about this argument (1) they don't take into account that most graduate/professional schools nowadays are more competitive (2) I don't have enough evidence, but intuitively, I wonder if that first job opportunity/your network is starting to depend more and more on name brands like Wharton and Harvard. So basically, just like how colleges these days are harder to get into, I wouldn't be surprised if future career opportunities depend more and more on where one gets educated.

Cartoons I

Some things for my school's student-run political magazine. Cartoons correspond to articles and don't necessarily reflect my own political views.

End of the Republic

I totally forgot! Did this in December for a creative project. Now I have a poster print of this in my room, but I don't know what to do with it... it's a little too stressful to have on "the wall," since, well... I don't exactly like waking up to burning parliamentary buildings, Nazi rallies, and communist slogans. I like certain parts of it (like the Prussian flag, the coolest flag in the world), but not sure if I like the entire thing... this would be a good story, if there aren't already a million WWII/inter-war stories already.

Anyway, will be drawing a cover for a school magazine soon. I have noooo idea what to do.

sketch 004

Last sketch from the summer.