<p>where's the best place to get a philly cheesesteak close by to campus.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Not liking people because of their ethnicity is racist.
Not liking people because of their religion is intolerant.
Religion has nothing to do with race.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Judiasm is both a race AND a religion, according to my jewish friends. However, I doubt the original poster knew this :)</p>
<p>lauraanne's post was HARDLY in-any-way intolerant.. if you could not see the irony in her post, you need to remove your PC-coated glasses. Her tounge-in-cheek post was insightful, and it's frustrating how quick some of you are to jump on a poster.</p>
<p>That said, some of the earlier posts in this thread certainly fit the bill...</p>
<p>this is a fact. If you don't consider the Asians or underrepresented minorities (blacks/hispanics/american indians), and you just look at the white population at Penn- especially in Penn's College, you'll see it's a very Jewish school. </p>
<p>There is overall diversity, but not much diversity within the white student body. The number of Jews at Penn greatly increased in the '70s and '80s, so there are a lot of children of alumni applying now- and there will be more and more in the years to come. 10-15% of the freshman class are alumni children.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>bern:</p>
<p>Could you tell me the addresses for Los Catrines y Tequilas and Alma de Cuba? My family loves both Mexican & Cuban food and I thought maybe we could try one of these while we're visiting during the Preview.</p>
<p>I'd appreciate any info you can give me about them (ex. do you need reservations?)</p>
<p>Tks!</p>
<p>Buy yourself a Zagats Guide or just log on they all will require reservations, they are all great. Philly is a great restaurant city.</p>
<p>Gosh Raven001...substitute 'African American' or 'Arab' in Lauraanne's post and then tell me that is it PC to be sensitive.</p>
<p>Lauraanne- I understand your explanation, especially the 0318 posting time issue. I hope that your Penn experience has brought you a broader understanding of people who are not like yourself. If not, you should be disappointed in your college education. Saying that one "never thinks about it" is one thing, understanding the differences and seeing the similarities is another.</p>
<p>
[quote]
He was simply making an accurate observation, that there is a large percentage of Jews at Penn
[/quote]
... in a thread about the bad things at Penn. Why did he single out Jews?</p>
<p>He mentioned Jews in a thread about the bad things at Penn. Should I say this another way for you to understand how offensive this is?</p>
<p>For those of you who said you don't like to see a group so overrepresented: Should Penn disqualify all but only the top 0.25 percent of Jewish applicants?</p>
<p>
[quote]
Its the same thing as the hebrew school guys saying "One thing i dont like about _________, is that it has too many Christians/Muslims etc"
[/quote]
Oh, because that's all Hebrew School guys do -- complain about how they don't want to go to schools with Christians and Muslims. Yeah, in fact, I go to a High School that is 100% Jewish and let me list you the times I've heard a statement like that:</p>
<p>1)</p>
<p>And, using my powerful powres of inference, I can infer that you believe that two wrongs make a right. "Oh, well if they do it then it's fine!" seems to be a valid line of reasoning. It's nice to see what a mature argument that is -- perhaps you should visit this page <a href="http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/%5B/url%5D">http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/</a></p>
<p>Choco's comment was made in naivety and ignorance, and he's apologized, so I think that should be the end of that.</p>
<p>Still, however, I think afa's comment warrents repetition: "there are more facets to a personality than merely religion. those people have other knowledge, experiences, and opinions to offer. just because they're jewish does not, in any way, mean they have a 'narrow scope of knowledge.'"</p>
<p>As for laur's post: When I first read it I thought, "oh boy ... another one. wow" but after I reread it I realized she was trying to be ironic, so I think the negative aspects can be attributed to the very early post time.</p>
<p>I think there is something to be said for Penn's emphasis on "practicality" instead of "intellectualism"</p>
<p>I think that it is indeed a good thing that students don't get their heads too far in the clouds with lofty intellectualism that often becomes completely disconnected with reality. Practical people make a difference in this world far more than those whose sole profession is to spew hot air.</p>
<p>Yes, some intellectualism is enriching and useful. But is important to keep your intellectualism grounded in the vast reality beyond faddish social causes. Penn makes you a reality-based, goal oriented student, which may not seem nice--until you realize that anyone except for a tenured professor will live in a reality-based, goal oriented world.</p>
<p>As for bad things, I think crime is an issue (but again Penn has come a very long way in this regard). Ultimately inevitable gentrification of West Philadelphia ghettoes will solve the problem at the source. Until then, it will always be a problem.</p>
<p>Allow me to share two experiences I've had in very similar classes at Penn. One was Chinese civilization, the current is Japanese civilization.</p>
<p>Now the Chinese civilization one was taught by a professor whose emphassi was on practicality and actual teaching of history. He was wonderul.</p>
<p>My second class, Japanese civilization, was by every measure a good "intellectual" class. However, I've realized in all of this that in comparison to what I've learned about China, I've learned very little about Japan. The whole class is centered around vague postmodernist notions of what 'identities' and 'knowledge' and 'history' etc really are. So we end up learning little and deconstructing what little we've learned until we're sitting in a puddle of postmodern goo. What is Japan? I'll be honest, I can't give you a good answer. What is China? Now that, I could give you a great answer.</p>
<p>Oh yeah. Bad things about Penn..</p>
<p>1) some people suck (though I imagine they'd suck elsewhere)
2) crime-packed West philly sucks (though gentrification will save us)
3) people think it's Penn State.
4) campus housing sucks ass, the buildlings (except for the Quad) are a legacy of Penn's cash-strapped earlier history in which low budgets meant lousy buildings. Penn should scrap them all and build a proper set of residences halls.</p>
<p>response on 3: People that matter don't!
as for four, alledgedly penn's supposed to be getting to doing some awesome remodeling.</p>
<p>they're remodelling the high rises, yes, but they are still deeply flawed buildings that are:
a) out of scale with the campus and neighborhood
b) ugly
c) poorly constructed on a fundamental level that rennovations can't fix
d) they're really so ugly that it should be mentioned twice
e) not at all conducive to building campus community, as the designers concede they were never meant to be. They were designed in the late 1960s and built in 1970, in an era in which traditional collegiate lore was scorned as evil phallocentric anachronistic oppression. So the high rises were built with virtually no common facilities to encourage interaction and community-building. There are no shared bathrooms, no shared kitchens, and a paltry amount of common space. But now collegiate spirit is back in vogue. Unfortunately, we're still stuck with these concrete eyesores. Given that the university recently poured $80 million into rennovating them, it looks like we'll be stuck with them for a good part of the 21st century as well.</p>
<p>is it pretty tough to get into the quad freshman year? and do a lot of people do residential programs?</p>
<p>I heard that the teachers are really nice there, is this true?</p>
<p>
[quote]
Gosh Raven001...substitute 'African American' or 'Arab' in Lauraanne's post and then tell me that is it PC to be sensitive.
[/quote]
You are so set on being offended that you completely missed his underlying point. Allow me to quote:
[quote]
I was basically trying to convey the idea that being a part of any definable group of students doesn't necessarily mean anything, and that despite any prevailing sentiments about groups of Penn people, like Greeks or Whartonites, those sentiments are not true for all members of those groups, and not everyone is a member of those groups.
As for the Jewish thing, like I said, that was supposed to be (emphasis on the supposed, I guess) a tongue in cheek reference to the rest of the thread.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>BINGO
He was defending Jews and you're all upset.... so sad.</p>
<p>I've talked to some people living in the highrises, and they've said that contrary to what you say, the highrises can indeed be social (and you can go to or throw a really nice party in the house). I've talked to a lot of sophomores who want the highrises because, they've met friends (which, allegedly isn't hard at all to do at penn, for all the people worrying about that) and want the nicer facilities. I dunno though, you're a student too, so what you should also be considered.</p>
<p>im not a current penn student, but i do know that the best philly cheesesteaks are Jim's on South Street. I decided to be daring and try one-- AMAZING, minus the heart burn of course haha (kidding)</p>
<p>Haha heartburn isn't the problem, it's the heart CLOGGING of the massive amounts of fat...mmm...</p>
<p>any other bad things about Penn?</p>