Wow! This Guy Wearing a Polo at the Gym Must Be Really Busy

There’s generally very little leeway in the tumultuous lives of Penn’s busiest students, so most feel pressured to squeeze the most out of every second they spend on campus. It’s so easy to get caught up trying to optimize study time or strike the perfect work-life balance, but Byron Cooper (C ‘21) is taking efficiency to an entirely different level.

Cooper, like many of us, used to waste minutes every week changing between his weathered, stinking gym clothes and his stylish, form-fitting Lacoste clothing. Despite being a serial procrastinator, Cooper knew, deep down, that all he needed to do was change how he looked externally to fix his problems. 

And that’s when it hit him. Cooper realized that he could escape the restrictive bonds of social decorum just by never changing his shirt at the gym and carrying an extra can of Axe body spray wherever he went. This one choice has changed his life forever.

Unchained from a debilitating cycle of dress and undress, Cooper has more free time than he can handle. After finishing the required readings for all the classes he’s deciding between for next semester, securing his summer internships through grad school, and winning a nobel prize, there isn’t much left for him to do besides actually grabbing lunch with his freshman year hallmates. Nevertheless, in his interview with us, Cooper stressed that he wanted to maintain a few unreachable goals just to keep himself humble.