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<p>WHAT??? Can we please dispense with this well-worn canard about Penn and the 6,400 undergrads in Penn’s College of Arts and Sciences? Penn’s College easily has the same level of “heavy participation in non-career focused studies and extracurricular activities” as do its peers, including Brown and Princeton. For example, Penn’s Performing Arts Council, alone, consists of more than 45 theatre, a cappella, dance, comedy, and musical groups, all well-funded and with vigorous participation and a busy schedule of well-attended performances. And believe it or not, lots of Wharton, Engineering, and Nursing students also participate. And there are many other examples in other areas of extracurricular activities. The “non-career focussed” extracurricular life at Penn is as rich and varied as that at any of its peers, with comparable participation by all Penn undergrads.</p>
<p>Further, in terms of “non-career focussed studies,” again, the 6,400 undergrads in Penn’s College are, by definition, enrolled in a liberal arts curriculum that is not career focussed and provides over 2,000 courses from which to choose. Not to mention all of the non-credit courses and programs in which lots of Penn undergrads participate, including those of the Kelly Writers House, the Penn Humanities Forum, and the more than 30 varying non-credit courses offered each semester in Penn’s Preceptorials program:</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.preceptorials.org/about.html”>http://www.preceptorials.org/about.html</a></p>