This would be the perfect submission, but we're not sure if Ben is a B.A. Candidate.
Today, 2010 College graduates received an e-mail from the Dean’s Advisory Board, requesting photo submissions for a CAS Graduation slide show. All of the graduates are sure to get teary-eyed looking at pictures of their 1500 best friends in the world having four years of zany times. The DAB asks that the photos are “tasteful” and “[limited] to those of just College students since it will be shown only to parents of students graduating from the College of Arts and Sciences.”
The guidelines make a lot of sense. First of all, after four long years spent snapping candids of our friends taking midterms, studying in Van Pelt, and listening to educational lectures with open ears and minds, we’re all swimming in “tasteful” photos.
Secondly, our families are definitely not trying to look at pictures of kids they don’t know. We can just hear Grammy shouting, “Who in tarnation is that kid? I’ve never seen him before in my life!” Then Uncle Pete will have to calm her down by explaining that the student was probably in Wharton or Engineering or even Nursing. It won’t make her feel better. Not at all.
So get your tasteful, liberal arts student-filled photos together and send them to Graduation2010@penndab.org. Not just because you could win a $25 gift certificate to a local restaurant, but because it takes a lot of time to play Vitamin C’s “Friends Forever,” Green Day’s “Good Riddance (Time Of Your Life),” Bette Midler’s “Wind Beneath My Wings” and R. Kelly’s “I Believe I Can Fly.”
As per a DP online update, Jon M. Huntsman Jr. is booked as the 2010 Commencement speaker. Aside from being the namesake for Wharton HQ, Huntsman used to be the Governor of Utah and now serves as the U.S. Ambassador to China.
Yes, seniors, that day has come. What day? The day your Bursar privileges have been taken away. PSYCH! You still have a couple months left to buy a computer/birth control/the entire 90210 DVD series for “free.” What you do need to do, however, is to fill out your graduation application.
Yeah, we thought fulfilling 5,691 requirements would qualify us for graduation, too. Not so. As per an excessively long email from the assistant dean for advising, seniors who are expecting to graduate in May need to fill out a grad application by February 15th.
Serving as the first real reminder to seniors that they will soon become irrelevant, save the date mailers for graduation were delivered this holiday weekend. You can find a rundown of the 254th commencement exercises below. And please do leave your guesses for commencementspeaker in the comments.
Sunday, May 16 Wharton Undergraduate Division Ceremony 9:00-11:00 a.m.
Franklin Field
Come next May, Franklin Field will be filled with approximately 35,000 discarded plastic bottles. No, it’s not becoming a temporary landfill. Instead, outgoing seniors will be the first class to graduate in 100% eco-friendly garb.
Each cap & gown will be made of 23 or so recycled plastic bottles that would otherwise be sitting in a landfill.
The company making them, Oak Hall Cap & Gown, claims the gowns are “virtually indistinguishable in color, feel or fit from traditional polyester material.” No word yet on what they will cost but the company will donate to the University’s Green Fund for every gown purchased. Commencement with a conscience?
A few months ago, some bitter chick at UCLA started a Facebook group to prevent underachieving Z-lister James Franco from being the school’s commencement speaker. We don’t want to seem ungrateful; we had a great time hearing John Legend the night after we got drunk with him at Blarney, and we were entertained enough by Amy’s pomp and circumstance remarks to blog about her. However, neither our favorite Ordinary Person nor our esteemed prez quoted R.L. Stine or flew around with a jet pack, and that’s exactly what we would have enjoyed had we been treated to Franco’s words. Lucky for us, he posted highlights from his rejected speech on FunnyorDie.com! (And, lucky for you, we’ve posted the video below.)
For the past nine months, we at UTB have been lucky to have our columnist Carlin grace this blog with her wit and wisdom. She graduated with the rest of the class of ‘09, but we convinced her to bid adieu with one last post. From now on, you can visit Carlin at her new personal blog.
When I was in elementary school, we were asked each semester in my nine years of attendance to fill out a five page self evaluation.I was asked, beginning at the age of five, what was my favorite class? What was the best thing I’d learned? What kind of a friend was I? What kind of a student?What were my strengths? My weaknesses?
I would fill these out pretty meticulously, with the knowledge that not only would my teachers be seeing them, but eventually my parents would too, so what I was really evaluating was the person I wanted them to see me as.Not that I was lying, exactly.But I wanted to be seen as a leader, as creative.A wonderful friend, and wonderfully liked.Smart.Good at everything I put my mind to.When transcripts were added into the equation, I wanted to be seen as engaged; involved in every club, every advanced class, and eventually, rewarded with the perfect boyfriend and wardrobe (I got him, and dumped him two months later for being too boring. The legacy of my wardrobe, however, continues).
Though I haven’t been asked to fill out one of these evaluations in about eight years, I’ve recently found myself thinking about the way we present ourselves, in contrast to the way we actually view ourselves when we strip away the Greek affiliations, social cliques, Facebook, and general Penn-isms.I carried these aspirations of self-preservation with me through college, and added in the edgy flavor of sexual deviant and potty mouth with a rockin’ closet.
Amy Gutmann conferred seniors’ Penn diplomas yesterday morning, but Smoke’s patrons had the chance to earn an even more exclusive diploma at the 40th Street institution. Check out one of the certificates below, which the owner was handing out last night (this one belongs to a UTB housemate):
One grad’s funny mortarboard message — the graduation version of fling bling — made the front page of today’s New York Times and page two of the Wall Street Journal. According to our sources (read: according to our merciless stalkage of a friend’s gchat status), the identity of said mystery jokester is (former) senior Nate Weiner.
Here’s hoping that a human resources exec somewhere out there responds to this bold gesture.
So today the class of ‘09 was all like, “See ya, suckaz!” And A-Gut was all like, “Imma wear this silly velvet hat. And some bling that will make Flava Flav mad jealous.”
While Google CEO Eric Schmidt will head down to Franklin Field on Monday to deliver his Commencement address, he spent Sunday in Pittsburgh doing the same at Carnegie Mellon. From what we gathered from his Sunday speech, Schmidt seems to be a pretty optimistic dude, even telling the Carnegie Mellon grads, ”Good things happen in recessions.” Let’s just hope he’s not worn out for his Philly debut:
Penn has an official Commencement Twitter, and as much as we love A. J. Snyder (said Twitter’s most prolific contributor), we will be tweeting it ourselves, @underthebutton. Tune in for tonight’s College graduation ceremony (John Legend!) and tomorrow’s Commencement ceremony (Eric Schmidt!).
Graduation weekend is a weird time, a weekend during which two totally separate worlds collide. There is the world of college and all that entails: your frat brothers, your girlie housemates, those guys and girls whose names you can’t remember (“Oh hey… you!”) . Then there is the world of your family, one of sibling rivalries, crazy grandmas and occasionally embarrassing parents. When these worlds meet on Locust Walk, awkwardness ensues. Along with the inherent awkward that arises when, say, your dad bumps into your one night stand outside ABP, there is the awkward that is captured in a glorious 3×5, forever to be on display in your parents’ house: the family photo. UTB is here to remind you that, no matter how awkward you think your family is this weekend (and you will feel very, very awkward) there are families out there who are Way More Awkward. Who have awkward oozing out their pores. The lovely folks over at awkwardfamilyphotos.com have compiled all these hilarious faces for your enjoyment, like in the awesome picture below!
When I was in elementary school, we were asked each semester in my nine years of attendance to fill out a five page self evaluation.
Penn has an official 
