<p>i have a question for current students:
since penn is in philadelphia, many people live off campus, and there are 10,000 undergrads, have you ever felt that penn has lacked a sense of community? do students still grow as close to one another as they would at another similar school? or do they tend to isolate themselves? </p>
<p>i’m especially worried b/c i love the high rise dorms, as does everyone else i’ve spoken with, but it seems like they isolate students from the rest of the campus and the other students on campus…is that true? or am i just imagining this? the singles are very appealing, but i’m scared of not having the chance to meet someone else even if i do get a double or triple in a high rise…do you have to live freshman year in the quad to have a true dorm experience? </p>
<p>I love the community at penn… You really do make a ton of friends, and even though it’s impossible to know everyone, you’ll see familiar faces everywhere. </p>
<p>About the highrises… don’t live there as a freshman (my personal opinion…) The problem with them is that it’s mostly upperclass students with pre-established groups of friends. In Hill and the Quad and such, people will always have their door open, and people will be hanging out in the common areas (or at least in hill they do… )… but in the highrises, everyone has their own living room and such so people tend to not interact as much.
so, I’d say go with Hill or the Quad for freshman year (if you want a single, that’s cool… you’ll still make plenty of friends) and go with the highrises your sophomore year</p>
<p>It’s not a sense of community in that you will know every single person walking down Locust Walk (with 9900 undergrads, how can you?). But it is a sense of community in that we are all Penn students, and we’re all here at Penn.</p>
<p>I would definitely try to live in Hill or Quad, because it’s more underclass-oriented than Superblock</p>