<p>What is this, when do we have to do it, and how mad are you?</p>
<p>[PRP</a> - The Gross Clinic](<a href=“http://www.collegehouses.upenn.edu/prp/]PRP”>http://www.collegehouses.upenn.edu/prp/)</p>
<p>I’m assuming we don’t really do it.</p>
<p>I’m happy! NO READING!</p>
<p>Oh nice! So we don’t actually have to do anything, at worst we just sit through a lecture or discussion of some people who care about art talking about an oldschool painting. I was worried I was gonna have to read a book or something over summer… not my cup of tea.</p>
<p>I’m not 100% sure… but I think you discuss it with your hall during NSO.</p>
<p>yep, you discuss it with your hall during NSO.</p>
<p>Last year, it was a book. I’ll be honest with you, I didn’t read a single character from that book, and I didn’t go to the hall meeting.</p>
<p>It does not count for a grade, and it does not count for anything at all. Don’t bother.</p>
<p>Do it if you want. Avoid it if you don’t care. It really won’t matter either way.</p>
<p>Gee, guys–how 'bout a little love of learning for the sake of learning, and expanding your intellectual and cultural horizons? Isn’t that what getting into and attending a top-10, Ivy League school is supposed to be about–even just a little bit? :rolleyes:</p>
<p>Can’t imagine that you conveyed these kinds of feelings in your application essays.</p>
<p>Learning for the sake of learning?! Clearly you must be high… or drunk off sake.</p>
<p>Most kids read a chapter and got really bored after a chapter or two and gave up on it. Many kids read less than 5 pages (many never opened it). A few proud students actually read the whole thing and no one cared. At least take a few minutes to see what it’s about. My year we had to read the Omnivore’s Dilemma. I suggest you actually see what it’s about though because some of your professors might reference it in class. In Econ 1 Stine loved talking about corn and corn farmers for perfect competition, producing corn for PPFs, etc. You at least understood why she was obsessed with corn if you read 5 pages of the book. It made the questions slightly more bearable. Still not as funny as the question about externalities and the strip club on campus with the shootings.</p>
<p>Clearly, Penn needs to rethink the Penn Reading Project (or else its admissions criteria :rolleyes:) if this thread is any indication of how poorly it is received by incoming freshmen. After all, it has been around for almost 20 years.</p>
<p>You think Michael Milken did the Summer Reading Project?</p>
<p>In defense of my future classmates, it’s not like we despise reading or expanding our hoirzons… it’s just that the idea of a summer reading project is a bit dull in the first place compared to everything else that Penn will offer us in the coming years. Reading a book just for the sake of attempting to unite ~2,500 people, when the real common bond just comes from plain old-fashioned school spirit? Discussing it during NSO and then never again? I love to read and even applied to the residential program called Readers’ Corner, but am unenthused by blanket reading assignments designed to help along new student orientation. It’s a good idea in theory, but, eh.</p>
<p>Summer reading assignments are dreaded starting in high school and even as early as in middle school. Penn can’t change that, haha. Maybe having all Wharton kids read a book that pertains to their interests, and nursing, and engineering, and then CAS departments or something, but I get the sense that Penn doesn’t like dividing students along school divisions any more than it has to.</p>
<p>Staring at paintings ftw!</p>
<p>^ I also love books, but assigned reading never gets me enthused. also, i know from personal experience as president of a school book club, 50% of the people who regularly go will never read the books, and 40% will lie, tell you they did. 5% won’t understand the book AT ALL (even basic plot summary you’d find on sparknotes) and the other 5% either hate the book or love it. that’s for the people who VOLUNTARILY go to a book club, not forced to read.</p>
<p>Well, I share 45 percenter’s sentiments on this one. Just a little perplexing that after all the hoop jumping involved in the admissions process to get into Penn, why one wouldn’t be willing to read 1 book over the summer and participate in some shared learning. In this case, there isn’t even any required reading.</p>
<p>It really does make you wonder about those admitted. I bet the people languishing on the waitlist would be more than happy to participate if it enhanced chances of getting in…</p>
<p>
Michael Milken was not an undergrad at Penn. In fact, he did his undergrad in liberal arts at Berkeley, where he graduated summa cum laude and was Phi Beta Kappa, so yes, I’m confident that he did the functional equivalent of the Summer Reading Project as an undergrad. :)</p>
<p>Maybe you should make Wikipedia part of your Summer Reading Project. :p</p>
<p>Ok. I was just going to let this thread pass but after numerous posts, I just wanted to respond. I’m sure that Quaker will look at the painting. I know I will. He just really wanted to know what you have to do with it…</p>
<p>The Gross Clinic is kind of a brilliant choice. It’s not just a great work of art; it’s also a rich document of social history – both aesthetic and scientific – as well as being at the center of a really interesting policy controversy last year, with implications for legal concepts of ownership, fiduciary duty, government support for nonprofits, etc. There’s a lot going on with that picture (and with The Agnew Clinic as well, whose subject is the doctor who made radical mastectomy the treatment of choice for breast cancer, depicted in the middle of supervising that very operation).</p>
<p>I understand that the students here are jaded and resentful of any kind of summer assignment. But you all should notice that everyone over 25 thinks your attitude is pathetic.</p>
<p>^ Hopefully, many of them will take the time to go to the Philadelphia Museum of Art to actually see “The Gross Clinic” in person (it’s stunning and powerful in ways that a mere print can’t convey), as well as “The Agnew Clinic” (which I believe is currently on loan from Penn to the Museum).</p>
<p>And JHS, as you and I (and perhaps a few others here) understand so well, youth (and, for that matter, college) is wasted on the young. :)</p>