Wharton friendship

aj725
Sat, 17 Dec 2005 18:47:59 +0000

I’m a Wharton alum from a few years ago…and here’s what I think about competition and friendship.

Yes, it is competitive but its healthy competition. If you think people are hiding each others notebooks or stealing books to get ahead, they’re not. Most people at Wharton are very driven and grades matter a lot to them, so they won’t go out of their way to help those who screw around–i.e. if some kid doesn’t come to class all semester and then suddenly wants to borrow all your notes to study 5 days before the exam, you won’t help them because it may cost you your A. But people do help each other–their friends and even their classmates. As a soph especially you get to know a lot of people because your entire class takes the same classes–you all have FNCE 100/101, STAT 101/102 etc. So even though you may not be best friends with them, you see the same people day in and day out and get to know them as classmates. Thus, like the poster above said, when one of these classmates forget a calculator for the exam–you don’t screw them over and say ‘i have 2 but you can’t have one.’

As for making friends, its like any place. I mean you compete with people you don’t know but you don’t compete with your friends–you’re not saying, I hope my best friend at college gets a C and doesn’t get that IB job so that I can have it.

As for it being more negative, competitive and fake during junior and senior year? I think that is sort of true but its a function of college in general, not of Wharton. During frosh year everywhere and during soph year at Wharton [because of the class set-up], people are really open and receptive to everyone to make friends. But by the time you’re a junior, you have your established friend group. Thus, you don’t go out of your way to befriend many people–sure you’re nice to them but it may be a superficial ‘yeah you sit near me in finance so i’ll ask you how you are and how recruiting is going…but i dont care all that deeply’ attitude. By that time you’re really immersed in your own life and your own friends–so you want to keep your own grades up, get good internships/jobs, hope the same for your friends but you don’t go out of your way to help/be interested in others that you haven’t gotten to know. At a competitive place like Wharton that comes off as a back-stabbing attitude but by and large it isn’t–just because people don’t act all friendly doesn’t mean they want to see you do badly, they’re just worried about themselves. Its kinda sad I guess but I think this happens at every college–once you have your friend group, you become more distant to everyone else.

Current Wharton students…do you agree/disagree with this?