OP-ED: I Don't Know What Everyone Is Complaining About, I Love Living in the Quad
Photos (with edits) from pxhere / CC0 and Pixabay / Pixabay License and Max Pixel / CC0
March 20, 2019 at 9:56 am
Ok, hot take incoming: I love living in the Quad.
I was so excited when I was assigned to Riepe the summer before freshman year. The Quad is so beautiful, so classically Ivy League, and everyone said it was by far the most social freshman dorm.
Then, the horror stories started. “It’s so old and so gross,” people said. “Desperately in need of renovation.” “Cramped.” Suddenly, I was nervous. “Maybe I should’ve lived in Gregory or KCEH,” I thought to myself. “Is my freshman year going to suck?”
No, not at all. My experience has been nothing short of magical.
Ever since me and my 500 roommates moved in, everyone has been so welcoming. Students are always leaving free food on the floor for me and my friends to eat, and every time they see me they scream with joy.
The administration has even generously installed a series of holes and tunnels in the walls that are just the right size for me to quickly and discreetly get anywhere I need to go. When it’s cold out, I can even get to McClelland without leaving the building (huge perk: if you sneak in at night through the small holes in the back wall, you don’t even need to use your swipes! Free cheese!) The University clearly cares a lot about making the Quad as nice to live in as they possibly can.
Additionally, I don’t know if it’s because me and my friends are a little small, but space has never been an issue. Every room we’ve been in has been incredibly spacious. Luxuriously so — we’ve been living like kings.
I’ll address, briefly, the elephant shrew in the room: yes, I am a mouse. Yes, I weigh half an ounce and, yes, I am approximately 5 centimeters tall. But I’m part of the Penn community, just like the students with whom I share my beautiful dorm, and my opinion deserves to be heard.
I will always be grateful for how welcoming the Quad and Penn itself have been of me and my species, and I vow to reciprocate by always approaching and welcoming students, visiting them in their rooms, going through their stuff and accepting their gifts of free food.
To be perfectly honest, I think I might never move out.