Pathetic: Tom's Reputation in Shambles After He Drops from 6.5 to 5.5 Credits

Tom Anderson (C '19, N '19, E '19) used to have it all. He was happily pursuing his fabulously uncoordinated triple-degree program, and was looking forward to a moderately unrelated career in consulting. But today, that all changed.

After assuring me that "I could do this in my head; this is just quicker," Tom whipped out his Apple calculator and determined that, in order for him to graduate on time, he has to take an average of 7.08 courses a semester, and another 2.56 a summer.

This fall semester, Tom was only taking 6.5 credits ("picking out Halloween costumes gets me really stressed out", he confessed). But he underestimated the Arts and Letters sector, big time. "Yeah, I got an B+ on my first reflection paper — so obviously, I had to drop," he explained. "Afterwards, I thought: No biggie, I'll just pay an extra $5000 to make it up during the summer. What I didn't realize is that I'm now taking just 5.5 credits. That's, like, a number of classes that regular people take."

Sure, Tom knows that he would thrive even if he only double majored and minored like the average Penn student, but he actively finds joy in doing more work than his peers. Whenever his friend Brad said that he had a midterm Monday and that he was scared and confused, Tom had been able to gleefully retort, "Well, I have one on Monday at 10:30 and one at 3 pm, bitch."

But now? Tom can only say, "Me too, Brad. I also have one, single exam on Monday, so I guess I have to acknowledge your emotions right now. Would you like to get some pizza and talk about it?"

As a result of the news, it appears that Brad is starting to think that he and Tom are equals as human beings. This morning, Brad casually mentioned how his intermediate Physics class rates a 3.45 in difficulty on PennCourseReview, while Tom's History of Baroque Music as it Relates to CyberTerrorism class only rates a 3.38.

Can someone say embarrassing?

Even though Tom's academic street cred is totally in the toilet, there might still be some benefit to his dropping the class. With his newfound free time, he has managed to pick up 5 more extracurriculars and apply for 3 more board positions. So yeah Brad, Tom's really sorry— he can't eat pizza with you, he has 4 exec meetings tonight.