Freshman Pulls First All-Nighter, Just to Get It Over With

Penn’s competitive culture often forces students to oscillate between struggling to maintain Penn face and getting into heated debates over who’s more exhausted. Only two weeks in, one intrepid freshman couldn’t take the suspense of waiting until late September to get into Penn’s infamous midterm season, so he took matters into his own hands. 

Armed with the syllabuses for ECON 001, MATH 104, PSYC 001 and Writing Sem, Tommy Rubin (C '21) was prepared to pull his first all nighter just so he could put an end to the class-related anxiety he was experiencing.

“I decided to switch between reading textbooks until my eyes glazed over, coming up with thesis statements for topics my professors might assign at some point in October or November, and leaving the Quad to go get Red Bull and mac & cheese from Wawa,” Rubin mumbled to us, before falling asleep in the middle of the interview. It’s unclear whether he knows that it’s totally unnecessary to pull an all nighter on a Friday night, with nothing due.