ALAN'S WRITINGS

Philosophy of Life - Original via PDF

My Philosophy Of Life

I really don't have a philosophy of life, but it is more like a feeling. So here I go: I think people are put here on Earth so they can do something, everyday no matter how small or large. People I think are put there as a test to see how far we can advance in a specific amount of time. We should be able to live life out to the fullest no matter how short or how long our life happens to be. I first started to think deeply about this when I was young in the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, which I will never forget. I believe people take life for granted until an unexpected life threatening experience happens to them. I also think everyone should truly count their blessings everyday of their life. It takes a negative experience like that to open someone's eyes and give them a positive experience like I've already have. And in the end you come out feeling better and stronger than ever. That is something that no amount of money can buy. But that little amount of weakness brings out a lifetime of happiness.

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Don't buy into the anti-hype
Daily Pennsylvanian issue date: 9/11/00
From Alan Bell's "Concentric Circles" weekly column

Oh there you are. You really can come out now. We've been looking for you for a long time, you know.

Seriously. We can see you under that pile of overpriced textbooks.

Yes, the presidential election is in full swing after pit stops in Philadelphia and Los Angeles, and it's about time we made our so-called voices heard. To provide a quick refresher for those who have had better things to do with their time, I've sorted out the previous year of campaigning in the next 197 words:

Former President George Bush's son went to Yale, learned that the Texas National Guard is close enough to Vietnam -- it's certainly closer than Oxford -- and failed in the oil business. His hobbies include following the Texas Rangers and executing people. He's running for president because it was really cool when his dad was in the White House.

Al Gore went to Harvard, roomed with Tommy Lee Jones and married a girl named Tipper -- 'nuff said. He's amazingly boring, but got lucky to match up with someone more snooze-worthy in the primary. He's running for president because the Democratic Party is guaranteed a spot in the general election, and he's the sitting vice president in a party starved for leadership. If they could, the Democrats would overturn the 22nd Amendment and nominate Clinton just to stick it to the Republicans.

Early exits: John McCain ran as a war hero and reformer but energized more Democrats than Republicans. Bill Bradley went to Princeton and got what he deserved -- loser status.

Also-rans: Ralph Nader is still unsafe at any speed, especially with the Green Party. Pat Buchanan and John Hagelin dismantled and embarrassed the third party movement.

So that's the wrap-up -- but the rest is up to you.

You see there's this thing that we get to do in this country -- our forefathers actually risked their lives for it -- elect our executive leader once every four years.

Some of you are political junkies who have been waiting for this chance to vote for a long time. Others may not like any of the options -- trust me, that's understandable given the choices.

The weird thing about voting is that for every vote that goes uncast, the others carry a greater weight. And some other voters are voting for Buchanan.

That means in your silence, you are supporting candidates you may dislike, in my case Buchanan. (And to the Buchanan supporters out there, feel free to send letters -- we're all dying to know who you are.)

Don't buy into the hype that by not voting you're making your displeasure heard. What you are doing is undermining our entire age group.

Why do you think the major issues in the general election are prescription medicine, health care and estate taxes? Why aren't they college loans, the war on drugs, campaign finance reform and the wage gap?

Because you don't vote. Our age group volunteers more than any other, but when the time comes for the voting booth, we shy away from our civic duty. The walk to DRL really is quite taxing, isn't it? Instead, we'd rather the senior citizens in Florida and the soccer moms around the country select our leadership and dictate policy. We'll stay at home and complain the system is corrupt.

If we don't vote, we'll only reaffirm what our elders already believe -- that we're a collection of apathetic, uninterested slackers, underachievers of the Bart Simpson mold, Nintendo-raised zombies who don't give a damn.

But we're more than that. We have a conscience, we haven't sold out -- yet -- and we can tell the nation we're not letting them give up on us.

Go out and vote. Vote for Bush, Gore, Nader, Hagelin or, heaven help us, Buchanan. Go to the voting booth to write in someone you think is willing to serve and would do a good job. Write in McCain, write in Bradley, write in Keyes, write in someone who at one point made you say, "Damn straight!"

Know this: Your vote will not decide the outcome of the election, even in a tight race in an important electoral state like Pennsylvania.

What it will decide is longer lasting. Your vote will make our generation a voice to be heard and catered to in future elections.

Then you can crawl back under your work -- you'll find out that four years from now, the politicians will be knocking at your door, asking what issues matter to you

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Penn donors lack Franklin's moral compass
Daily Pennsylvanian issue date: 9/22/00
From Alan Bell's "Concentric Circles" weekly column

Indulge me in a quick game of word association. I say University of Pennsylvania elder statesman and you think Benjamin Franklin, right?

Call me old-fashioned, but when I envision the values of learning "every thing that is useful and every thing that is ornamental," I use that pudgy character lounging in bronze by the Compass as a reference point. I like what Benjamin Franklin stands for: a renaissance man who left the world a better place than he found it.

His legacy remains in every library, fire department and hundred-dollar bill.

Fast forward to last weekend, when we were so subtly informed "There's No Place Like Penn... at Perelman Quadrangle." It seems to me that there are more and more places at Penn named in the fashion of the Perelman Quadrangle, and the only thing we risk in the process is our reputation and integrity by selling our campus bit-by-bit to the highest bidder.

At the ribbon-cutting ceremony on Saturday, Provost Barchi observed, "I think in the years to come, the words on everybody's lips will be ŒMeet me on Wynn Commons.'" But before we heartily embrace the name that millions of dollars thrust upon us, shall we first take a look at the honorable Mr. Wynn?

Steve Wynn is a very wealthy man by virtue of his many successful dealings in Las Vegas. Wynn first purchased a tract of unused land near Caesar's Palace that Caesar's ultimately bought for fear of increased competition. Wynn used his new capital to control another casino, the Golden Nugget. From there, Wynn revitalized a fading Vegas with a spectacular Mirage and today continues to up the ante with the $1.8 billion Bellagio.

Ronald Perelman, the other name on "everybody's lips" in the near future, is also a questionable character. Mr. Perelman, whose recent donations have targeted Penn, Princeton University and UCLA, started to accumulate his wealth in the early 1980s as America's most feared corporate raider.

His landmark business achievement was a 1985 takeover of Revlon -- the first successful hostile, junk-bond-financed takeover of a significant U.S. business.

Not exactly a string of terms our founder would have been eager to plaster around this campus.

But let's take a closer look -- both of these illustrious Penn alumni (Wynn from the College and Perelman from Wharton) turned Trustees have a connection with another alumnus of a more dubious nature. I refer to, of course, the homegrown Wharton MBA turned junk-bond -- dare I say it -- king, Michael Milken.

Milken's story is a long and complicated one -- the highlights include being the media's image of '80s greed and excess -- which ends in a lengthy prison sentence for securities fraud in 1990. Milken is hardly the image of integrity and ethics, but he is responsible for unleashing a young and ambitious corporate raider by the name of Perelman and funding a rising Vegas star in the late 1970s by the name of Wynn.

Oh, the tangled web Penn weaves.

What this long and rambling history lesson denotes is a hostile junk-bond-financed takeover of our University. These 1980s billionaires looking to clean up their images with ego-stroking donations and various Ivy League school associations are far from the standards of real philanthropy.

Real philanthropy does not carry a clause requiring the donor's name engraved in two-foot-tall letters beneath the University shield in a prominent campus location. Real philanthropy does not require an entire section of campus renamed to reflect the sugar daddy.

What real philanthropy does is allow the University to honor the name of any previous Penn alumnus, preferably deceased, who has contributed significantly to enhancing the stature and honor of the school through their lives.

If Ronald Perelman, Steve Wynn, Michael Milken and Donald Trump -- another '80s tycoon with a Wharton degree who has yet to bestow a portion of his wealth on the University -- reach these noble heights in their lives, then Penn should by all means honor them with a building or a concrete "yard."

Today, however, their legacies are far from positive in the eyes of any discriminating student. If that changes, I'd be happy to meet my fellow alumni at Milken Labs or Trump Hall in 2052.

Until then, I'd rather rendezvous with my peers at Ben Franklin's faithful Compass -- something appropriately missing from both the Perelman Quad and Wynn Commons.

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Wharton Scholars? Far from it
Daily Pennsylvanian issue date: 10/3/00
From Alan Bell's "Concentric Circles" weekly column

In Steinberg-Dietrich Hall, College students are prevented from using Wharton computer labs. But even for a large number of Wharton students, certain doors remain closed within their own school.

Established in 1988, the Joseph Wharton Scholars program "is designed to emphasize the importance of scholarly research and the liberal arts within the framework of a business education," according to its World Wide Web site.

I happen to think that is a noble goal. Too many of my Wharton peers bulk up on Finance classes only to neglect the fantastic opportunities in the College. Subjects like History, English and Psychology are used to meet requirements; in-depth exploration of the liberal arts sadly exists more in brochures for the Wharton School than in the student body.

But distinct from the high ideals of the JWS program is its current execution. The Wharton School doesn't gauge interest in research or the liberal arts on its application specifically, but officials see fit to hand-pick incoming freshmen prior to matriculation from an unknown set of criteria.

For practical purposes, the program resembles a registration facilitator, similar to that of Benjamin Franklin Scholars or University Scholars. JWSers are granted special access to honors classes during pre-registration while other students must wait for drop-add and request departmental or instructor permission.

Evidenced by their own Web site, participants in JWS further envision themselves as superior to the general student body. For them, the program offers "expanded opportunities for high-potential, motivated Wharton students to interact with among the most talented of their class in both academic and social environments."

Under what criteria have these students proven themselves to have a higher potential or more motivation than the average Wharton student? Most students at Penn are extremely motivated and have enormous potential; do the members of the JWS Society honestly believe they are significantly better?

If so, the natural reaction is to apply to join this "elite" group. After all, what better proof of one's potential and motivation than his or her performance at Penn? The Benjamin Franklin Scholars program goes so far as to comment, "Because there are others who would be valuable members of the program, we strongly encourage other intellectually ambitious students to apply from on campus."

But unlike BFS, which allows students to apply in their first two years, JWSers are admitted only upon matriculation; there is no application process for those who sincerely exhibit an interest in research and the liberal arts within a business framework.

When I met with Martin Asher, the director of the Joseph Wharton Scholars program, he assured me his focus is on making the program represent something "different, not better." Over the summer, the JWS section of Econ 001 was replaced by a special experimental class, Finance 103x, which looks to cover more material with an emphasis on the program's ideals.

It is good to know JWS is being changed and refocused; it is crucial to harness this momentum for more substantive change.

First, any class that exhibits preference for JWS students over that of the general student body must exhibit a strong focus on research and/or the liberal arts. Classes that simply parallel non-honors offerings -- with the exception of offering blue-chip professors and smaller class sizes -- only reinforce a "better, not different" stigma.

Furthermore, students admitted into the program should express a specific interest in research and the liberal arts "within the framework of a business education." They should likewise be presented with a curriculum that reflects these interests by requiring a greater proportion of classes in the College than the average Wharton student.

But most students do not yearn for a research or liberal arts augmentation of their business curriculum until they've studied for quite a time at Penn. In that vein, if JWS wants to recognize students with this specific interest, on-campus applications and admittance is vital for any sense of legitimacy.

Ultimately, the program is in need of continued reform. Too many Wharton students see JWS as a bogus recognition allowing easy access to the best professors and courses.

As it stands, the program has little to counter these views.

To debunk these widely held beliefs, JWS needs a serious overhaul -- it has to become either a replica of BFS in Wharton or a program that lives up to its high ideals. I have faith the powers that be will refute the former, for the latter has something of value to offer the student body and should be pursued -- but only in an equitable way.

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The land of no happy returns
Daily Pennsylvanian issue date: 10/6/00
From Alan Bell's "Concentric Circles" weekly column

Sasha celebrated his 20th birthday on July 12. When he's not busy studying for his Linguistics degree, he's either playing cards with the guys or going out with his girlfriend -- dinner and a movie or maybe just clubbing. As a part-time job, he's a bartender where the tips are good.

In a lot of ways, Sasha is like many of us: hard at work, hard at play and trying to find a nice balance. But I wouldn't be telling you his story if there weren't a key difference that sets him apart.

When Sasha passes by beggars in the street, he can't just turn the other way, but tossing some change won't clear his conscience. Unlike the rest of us, there is no guarantee that wherever he goes or whatever he does, everything will work out.

He knows this because he's witnessed millions of cases where it never does.

He knows this because he doesn't attend Penn, Penn State or even the Indiana University of Pennsylvania.

He knows this because he lives in the Russian city of Perm and goes to the university there. And because of this simple distinguishing factor of location, Sasha's entire outlook on his future is vastly different from ours.

Russia is a country in serious trouble that runs deeper than sunken submarines. But as it lacks the glamour of tax plans and Medicare, its news rarely reaches our ears.

Here are a few figures to chew on:

Russia recently has undergone an unprecedented decrease in population for an industrialized country -- from 148 million three years ago to 145 million today. While we debate the pros and cons of RU486, Russia has the world's highest abortion rate -- two out of every three pregnancies end this way.

Russian men have Europe's highest mortality rate, with a life expectancy less than 60 years. Two out of every three working-age men who die do so from alcohol-related causes. Russian men are four times as likely as American men to commit suicide.

Most startling -- and most revealing -- 40 percent of Russians live below the poverty line. Teachers in the United States may be underpaid, but they do not make $40 a month like their Russian counterparts.

We here at Penn operate on a nice, comfortable assumption that regardless of career choice, be it Internet start-up or nonprofit organization, we will make ends meet. While we fret at info sessions or career fairs that we may end up making -- perish the thought -- under $30,000 in our first year, we know that life will be just fine. By virtue of our degree alone, our odds of winning the lottery are better than ever going hungry or homeless.

Given a choice, Sasha would like to follow his passion and work in linguistics. Making that choice, however, resigns him to a life of abject poverty. If he wants to afford the simply luxury of buying his girlfriend flowers, he must continue to work wherever he can find it -- currently, behind a bar.

Our peers across the globe are living in a different world. For them, the choices are not between Cancun and Jamaica for spring break. They may never even take a plane ride in their entire life, while most of us simply hop on the Internet to get a ticket home for Thanksgiving.

Maybe these are just minor quibbles and obvious differences as a result of my being from the wealthiest country in the world. On the other hand, it's pretty amazing to stop and think about how much better off we are -- not because we're smarter, not because we work harder, not because we deserve it. Just because we live in the United States.

That others aren't as lucky doesn't mean we owe it to follow a Mother Theresa life. It does mean we owe it to our peers to recognize the advantages we have and not waste them. Because at the end of the day, every child still deserves a future -- sadly enough, few in Sasha's country actually have one.

Be grateful for the endless opportunities and comforts that lay ahead of you regardless of what you choose, whether that be investment banker or janitor. For every one of you, there are 50 Sashas who would give it all up in a heartbeat just to have a chance.

This is the message he asked me to send.

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The long road to Palestra glory begins at The Line
Daily Pennsylvanian issue date: 10/20/00
From Alan Bell's "Concentric Circles" weekly column

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When worlds collide
Daily Pennsylvanian issue date: 10/27/00
From Alan Bell's "Concentric Circles" weekly column

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My life as a latchkey kid
Daily Pennsylvanian issue date: 11/3/00
From Alan Bell's "Concentric Circles" weekly column

Obviously, the important event of the next few days is the selection of the next president of the United States. And among the debates over abortion, Social Security and the irresponsible spending both candidates advocate rather than paying off the national debt lies a central concern for most Americans: education.

While we concern ourselves with the quality of instruction in the classroom, few of us ever consider the amount of learning and growth that occurs off school grounds. From 7:45 a.m. to 3:00 p.m., most kids are confined in the boundaries of a school, but what happens when the closing bell rings?

The U.S. Census Bureau released statistics on Tuesday that might surprise those who assume every child is coming home to June Cleaver and setting the table while waiting for Ward to come home. Those statistics? More than two million children under the age of 12 are left home alone before or after school. Furthermore, the seven million 5-to-14-year-olds of working parents are left home alone for an average of six hours per week.

Ah, yes, the plight of latchkey kids. What seems like an atrocity developing from dual-income households is nothing of the sort. As an alumnus of the latchkey society, I ask that the rest of the world -- U.S. Census Bureau and media reporting this "scare" included -- to just take a breather.

As long as I can remember, I was coming home to an empty house or one with only my older sister present. Both parents were out at work until 5:00. Did I discover the wonders of juvenile delinquency in the absence of parental supervision? To the contrary -- I believe the lessons I learned were anything but deviant.

Coming home to an empty house doesn't mean you sit on the couch and cry about the fact that you already counted all the dimples in the ceiling tiles last month. It means you get up off your keister and make your hungry tummy something to eat and start to do your homework.

(Granted, I did most of that work in front of the television -- 3-2-1 Contact simply cannot be denied.)

Why polish off that homework before your parents get home? So you don't have to do it while they're there -- absence likely makes the heart grow fonder, but it also makes for an efficient worker who knows the value of family time.

Coming home to an empty house doesn't mean you learn to fool around and act irresponsibly. What you do learn -- and rather quickly -- is how cold it gets in the winter when you forget your keys and you're locked out of the house until Mom or Dad gets home. In short, you learn responsibility in the most vivid of ways; if you don't, you usually end up with frostbitten toes.

Coming home to an empty house doesn't mean you learn that "family" is a four-letter word. You learn that your parents love you in a superlative way -- to the extent that they will give up that which they cherish most (time spent with their children) so that you can be afforded the financial freedoms of possibly attending an Ivy League school.

Not all latchkey kids end up in Ivy League institutions. Not all of them become bastions of responsible behavior. Not all of them do their homework in a timely manner, although all of them do learn the art of subsistence cooking.

So please, don't pity me for not having adult supervision for 10 hours a week while I was an impressionable youth. I don't claim to have had the ideal childhood, but that's because I think no one has ever had an ideal childhood. And I don't think anyone else has the right to preach their lifestyle choices to others who have different constraints on their time and finances. What I had worked for me -- and it worked pretty damn well.

So let's keep our eyes on improving the time our kids spend in school and leave the parental choices to those best qualified to make them: the parents themselves

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Making the world unsafe for democracy
Daily Pennsylvanian issue date: 11/10/00
From Alan Bell's "Concentric Circles" weekly column

As yesterday's recount in Florida took a tiny step toward settling the issue over who will be the 43rd president of the United States, many pundits heralded the incredible value of each vote.

And while that may be true for senior citizens in Palm Beach with five all-news channels asking how confused you were by the ballot, it doesn't go very far in explaining the value of a vote for Bush in Massachusetts, where a winner-takes-all Electoral College stifles your voice.

But regardless of volume, an American's voice at the voting booth is of superlative importance; our system depends on an honest, efficient and fair gauge of the people's choice.

When I changed my voter registration to my college address, I did so in order to make my voice heard immediately on Election Day (as well as postpone what ended up being a gut decision from a menu of disheartening choices). I'll probably reconsider that choice in the future as a result of the gross display of incompetence I viewed in DRL Tuesday afternoon.

I arrived at 1:30 p.m. and cast my vote 90 minutes later. After waiting in a laughably long line because I left my voter registration card at home -- an unnecessary document, the authorities say -- I reached the democracy's first line of defense: Table 1.

Table 1's role was to take all the ignoramuses who didn't bring their registration cards and tell them where to go based on their street address. When I gave my address, the worker there looked at the book and then back toward me like I was crazy. That's understandable -- after all, I'm sure not many people voting that day were coming from the Quad. She huffed and puffed and sent me over to Table 2.

Table 2 was even better. The staffer there was busy trying to get help from the woman at Table 1 on how to do her job, while the woman at Table 1 was busy sending people over to her. Circular logic to say the least, but common sense that afternoon.

As I made my way down the tables to see which book, if any, listed my name, my good luck kicked in -- I found my name at the last table in the hallway. At no point, however, did any polling attendant show any concern for the hundreds of other frustrated students.

With our civic duty in mind, we waited for help that rarely came.

The student next to me in line went so far as to go to a city court to get his vote counted on an absentee ballot -- all because his name was missing from the list at DRL. If we as college students are expected to cut an entire day of classes to perform our civic duty, the least our retired compatriots in Palm Beach can do is follow an arrow to a hole.

Tuesday was a sad day for a person interested in increasing voter turnout -- the barriers to voting are still ridiculously high when they should be outrageously low. In retrospect, I'm convinced the officials were unaware of the importance of their position -- their ambivalence to whether or not I voted, just as long as I kept my mouth shut in line, was shocking under the circumstances.

This summer, a census official pounded my parents' door to get a "long form" filled out. From his persistence in July, it's clear the government can hire competent help when it values a task. Why this same sense of duty could not be found at my polling station sends a different message.

Regardless of your views on this past (and current) election -- and whether you notice that based on the county's mortality rate, 2,000 voters in Palm Beach won't live to see the next president inaugurated but will decide who wins -- the fact remains that voting should be a smoother process. This is especially true for younger voters, who are just getting accustomed to voting.

I know that in the future, when I pass by students voting at DRL, their experience will be a bit smoother. I'll be doing my part to lighten the workers' load.

I'll be voting absentee.

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Mister Rogers will be missed
Daily Pennsylvanian issue date: 11/17/00
From Alan Bell's "Concentric Circles" weekly column

Where have our gentle, guiding elders gone? Moreover, who can possibly replace the vacuum of leadership created with last week's stunning news?

That's right -- for those of you in a recount-induced coma, Fred Rogers announced the final new episodes of his children's television show, Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood, will be taped next year.

That's right. Mr. Rogers, 71, is taking his message to greener pastures.

I sense that most will quickly shrug off this news, assuming Mr. Rogers is just another program soon to be forgotten. But let the record show that when Mr. Rogers goes off the air, it's not just another show signing off; it's a sign of the times.

There's just no more room for the Mr. Rogerses in today's world, is there?

Instead of the poised comfort of a man clad in a cardigan expounding the wonders of sharing, anger management and the need to address your fear of the dark head on, we are left with Japanese anime and the Power Rangers.

Granted, most of you left children's television behind some 15 years ago, but for all who still find comfort in consistency, Mr. Rogers was a rock, and a pleasant one at that.

Mr. Rogers never was the cool show to watch or even something you would talk about with your preschool friends over cookies and milk. And from talking with my 5-year-old nephew Benji, this has stayed constant. But everyone watched Mr. Rogers, and for that, no one can claim to have been made a lesser person.

Today's shows targeted at children often come with the focus on selling a myriad of spin-off products. Take the evil to end all evil -- Pokemon -- or the more benign examples of commercialized education, like Blue's Clues.

Mr. Rogers? Did he ever try to sell you anything other than the good feeling that comes along with being a good person?

Instead, he was a sign that with all that's wrong with television raising our kids, at least there's something mildly right. Over his 50 years in television, the last 33 spent with his eponymous neighborhood show, Fred Rogers had the sole intention of making this crazy world a more calming one for children. And if you still think monetary motives drove his actions, might I remind you that public television is where profits go to die.

In fact, as the longest-running children's show on public television, Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood likely had its opportunities to strike it rich on other media outlets. But how can you preach the value of self-esteem when the value of the advertising revenues paying your bills is the primary concern?

Maybe some will see this as a weak manifesto for public television. But I'm not all that passionate about stations whose "prime time" programming consists of repeats of the Three Tenors.

I do think, however, that the sooner we realize how much we were influenced by television when we were growing up, the quicker we can determine that some programs do more than keep our kids preoccupied.

Some shows are more innocuous than others and offer educational value in exchange for selling toys, but the fading away of a man who embodies all that can be good about children's television is something that can't be ignored.

So while we've likely forgotten King Friday XIII, Daniel Striped Tiger and Lady Elaine Fairchilde, we won't forget that honest humanitarians like Mr. Rogers do exist and have made an impact. And with any luck, someone watching his show today just might follow his sneaker-wearing footsteps.

And that person might learn a lesson which the entire country should today take to heart -- that playing fair and treating your opponents with respect are more important than winning at any cost.

Even my nephew Benji could tell you that Mr. Rogers wouldn't be pleased

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A sorry picture in the museum
Daily Pennsylvanian issue date: 12/1/00
From Alan Bell's "Concentric Circles" weekly column

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A cure for the finals blues
Daily Pennsylvanian issue date: 12/8/00
From Alan Bell's "Concentric Circles" weekly column

Life has a nice way of periodically delivering a healthy kick to the rear, doesn't it?

Take, for instance, finals season. We all knew this was coming for the past three months, but each successive week this semester has slowly added to a downward spiral of denial.

Well, deny it all you want, but with only a weekend and some reading days left before the fun starts, the campus is slowly taking on the more redeeming characteristics of a morgue.

Look to your left, and behold the sleep-deprived Finance student dragging a cot into Steinberg-Dietrich for the first in a series of all-nighters. Look to your right, and witness the zombie in Rosengarten frantically searching for words like "superfluous" and "extraneous" to creep over that eight-page minimum threshold.

And with these scenarios come the snappy, biting attitude that lies dormant for most of the semester, hidden under a layer of ample sleep and a balanced amount of work.

They don't show you this in the admissions guide, do they?

The University of Pennsylvania is a great school for working hard and playing hard -- but come the last two weeks before winter break, and suddenly reality deals a cruel blow and knocks the entire balance out of whack.

While the mix of fun and work turns to a lethal dose of untarnished toil in your personal hell, everyone else on campus is going through the same exact thing. And for that reason, there's little excuse for pretending your load is the heaviest and the world should just move aside in deference.

You know what I mean. The snappy comments by hurried people standing in line multiplies tenfold. The pace of passersby on Locust Walk cranks up a notch from a lazy meander to a determined stride.

All over campus, you can feel everyone operating with that little hint of panic and desperation.

Don't just suck it up, either. Rather than denying the horrible situation your poor planning has wrought, try incorporating some fun into the next few weeks.

Contrary to popular belief, there are constructive alternatives to hating the entire world for the enormous workload suddenly materializing on your desk.

And by constructive alternatives, I don't mean the famous pastime of comparing how much you have to do in the next four days with your roommate to determine who's in a deeper hole. Because we all know that confirming your superlatively crappy situation really makes it easier to swallow.

Go to a basketball game. With a nationally ranked Maryland team in town tomorrow, there's no better way to take the edge off than screaming your lungs out at opposing Terrapins .

Who knows, with a win possible at the Palestra, you might just pick up that contagious slay-the-beast attitude for your upcoming tests.

Check out some of the shows still getting crammed in by one of Penn's thousands of performing groups. There are a few still remaining and they've had more time to practice than the others -- whether that means they'll be any good only you can decide.

Go work out -- your atrophied toothpick legs won't help you get around if you don't show them some more love than the "e-mail break" to the iMacs in the library.

In the end, there's no denying that fall semester is rough. The days are getting shorter, the nights longer -- and staying up late when an inviting bed calls to you takes its toll.

With a long break ahead, staying focused for a few tests or papers in the next few weeks never is easy.

But maybe some of you can become the two percent who don't become clinically insane over the next week. Some might realize that while hating the world and carrying that heavy chip on their shoulder can be entertaining for a day, but it's not so much fun when everyone else is slouching, too.

Or just keep on working yourself crazy. Some might think a few weeks of pain isn't that bad when a month of nirvana lies right over the cliff's edge. And for those appreciating the psychotic anguish of finals, enjoy.

Either way, you can find me working diligently on a true New Year's priority -- delivering a swift kick right back at life.

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What matters most to you, and why?

At the risk of sounding like I’m trying to coin a phrase or the title of the next guru-driven entry into the New YorkTimes Bestseller list, empathy matters. When I reflect on my moments of success or happiness or constructive frustration, I realize that the underlying force towards good in all those cases is empathy. Starting from early in my youth and reaching far ahead into my goals, it is this thread of empathy that truly has mattered; to paraphrase Vince Lombardi, empathy isn’t everything, it’s the only thing.

For a normal three-year-old boy, empathy should probably be a one-way street: empathize with my issues and my concerns, but best of luck trying to get me to worry over why you’re acting so hay-wired, mom. For me, however, my early years were faced with weeks and months on end in a hospital room – I had little need to ask for empathy from others, but was faced frequently with extreme emotional situations that challenged me as a child to understand the complex feelings coming from those who cared for me. What was my mother thinking? What made my father act in a completely different manner from my mother? What was the connection between my sister’s declining performance at school and my time in the hospital? In those early years, empathy took a primary role in my personal Maslowian hierarchy of needs: only through better comprehension of the perspective of others, could I make a confusing world around me make any sense.

On the safer side of those years, I returned annually to the pediatric oncology unit for a check-up over the next fifteen years. It was during those check-ups, that I began to learn the benefit to others of someone who can empathize in the “first order” – having been in the same place. As I grew into one the unit’s shining success stories, my oncologist frequently took the opportunity to introduce me to current patients in the unit. As an example of a healthy, normal child/adolescent/young adult with a similar background, she knew that I could communicate with those children in a way that their families and doctors could not. To be sure, those meetings were difficult and loaded with challenging questions of mortality for a teenager to face: who knew how many of those I met would simply be alive when I returned the next year. But my personal issues were far from the point; as I left each patient even slightly happier or more optimistic than I found them, I built a reservoir of moments proving the value of connecting with others on the basis of a shared history.

While my experiences with hospitals and cancer formed a dramatic foundation to my worldview, I have found its applicability and refined its lessons in virtually every arena. While in high school, a former middle school teacher asked me to meet weekly with one of her more challenging students as a personal favor. What she knew then is what I learned over the course of the next three years of that relationship – that my ability to listen and empathize with others, no matter how completely different, combined with my own personal successes, proved to be an effective skill set for mentoring. Adam and I built a solid friendship that we each used to grow into better versions of ourselves. As I saw this former middle school outcast frequently surrounded by friends and honor roll bound in my final semester at Lower Moreland , I learned a tremendous amount of the latent potential to be found in each person. The power of what was primarily an empathetic ear to turn around Adam’s life at a critical age of development was a lesson that I’ve kept close to me in the years that followed.

Empathy also provided the key insight for one of my most significant academic accomplishments: a 15-minute stand-up routine. My Writing Humor course at Harvard University ’s Summer Secondary School Program concluded with this audacious final assignment of live performance. I spent close to 20 hours a week attempting to craft the perfect routine, one that would succeed in the event of the most hostile audience of 200 fellow teens. When I completed the performance, however, I found that the most successful bits and pieces were those that most specifically addressed the audience. Those jokes that focused on the life of a summer school participant were those that found the side-splitting seams. Talking about the mediocre food, the awkward dynamics of a summer relationship or the struggle to balance class with a busy social life were hits. For a later business context, this was the moment that crystallized the benefit of understanding your audience and building your product specifically around their needs and/or aspirations.

When faced with a diverse and broad-based curriculum while an undergraduate, I found again that empathy and the understanding of people behind the concepts as my “intellectual glue.” As a freshman at the University of Pennsylvania , my initial focus was entirely on the Wharton undergraduate business curriculum. After a year of fairly linear coursework, I began to explore other areas of study in the university to complement my left-brain-centric studies. While I settled on a Political Science major in the College of Arts and Sciences to explore my interest in international relations, it was the minor I began in my junior year that pulled all the pieces together. My sociology classes asked not “how to interact with the environment” but rather “why is the environment the way it is?” or “How does it fundamentally affect the people within?” Armed with that perspective, the political science, management and finance classes prompted new, difficult and fundamental questions.Through understanding the effect on individuals did international political structures become highly relevant; through understanding how markets drive people within the systems, did the conflict between socialism and capitalism come alive for me. Sociology provided an academic framework of empathy that allowed for fresh insight to the things that matter in all these fields – are these structures sustainable given their impacts? If not, how best to tailor towards productive sustainability?

Outside the classroom, I found that viewing issues from the perspective of others was the most enjoyable and most effective way to achieve project goals. As co-chair of the University Honor Council¹, I had set out an aggressive agenda to raise the profile of academic integrity across the university. To achieve this logical goal, I worked with a wide array of constituents: professors, administrators, teaching assistants, community members and students. With each population, I realized, the better I could understand their needs, the better I could tailor what was an eminently adaptable message. Academic integrity for integrity’s sake, while personally appealing, is a message that fell flat again and again. For whatever flaws students at Penn had, they were unique and not exactly like those of students at other schools. In looking at our student body, what we realized is that over 50% of the undergraduates see themselves in some pre-professional track, looking to work immediately after graduation, and possibly later attending graduate school. With that in mind, I developed a series of panels that explored “Ethics in the Workplace.” By bringing in a wide variety of professionals from notable companies, I was able to appeal to the interests of the students; by having them talk to issues of integrity in their careers, I was able to make our larger message link in with those things that mattered to our student constituency. We followed this approach again and again, pulling in administrative support, TA and professor involvement, and community participation, culminating in an Academic Integrity Week, recognized by the City of Philadelphia and the Mayor’s Office.

Armed with example after example, it came as little surprise that when I began to work full-time, empathy would be the core characteristic for me that separated good consultants in my field from adequate “vendors.” The ability to understand the unspoken needs of a client, their personal career goals and targets, provides the perspective on which all deliverables should be evaluated. I saw this on a recent project where I was staffed to build and run a test lab on a call center floor for a large credit card retention unit. Our client was the marketing group, but operations would be the group responsible for staffing, training and supporting the unit. It was a clear challenge to be the liaison between two groups which historically had difficulty working together and frequently operated by dictating instructions to each other. After several months, however, I became adept at driving results from all sides by understanding the core motivations of each constituency. For marketing, I quickly understood the goal was deliver as large a change in retention rates as possible. For operations, the mission was low handle times and high customer satisfaction. For the associates on the phones themselves, the goal was hitting their monthly target numbers to reach a bonus. With new information from our group, we were able to successfully improve each group’s understanding of their value – improving the way saves were measured, more accurately understanding a handle time impact and adjusting associate compensation to reflect the goals of testing. Once all the components were aligned to speak to the same goal, the group began to work smoothly, ultimately identifying strategies for improving retention rates by up to 80%.

Internally at Novantas, I have found similar lessons apply, whether through managing teams internally, running recruiting or coordinating our mentor program. As the youngest employee to reach the position of manager, much of my successes are due to my ability to relate not only to my teammates, but also to the leadership of the firm. By keeping both constantly in mind, I have proven a skill to not only reach targets successfully (pleasing managing directors), but also to keep my teams motivated and energized (certainly pleasing associates prone to burn-out on a mismanaged engagement). In recruiting, we have realized our greatest success in the past year after packaging a suite of advertisements and information sessions that speak to candidates with a view informed by candidates themselves², rather than messages our directors wanted recruits to hear. For mentoring, perhaps the area that requires the most explicit use of empathy, I have drafted training sessions for our new mentors to understand the best way to elicit true feedback and identify issues of concern early on. Feedback from mentees and mentors alike has been that the program, while more regimented, has never been more useful and beneficial to all sides.

But perhaps the most telling aspect of something’s import is what the world looks like when it begins to disappear. As I read newspaper articles, magazines and books on assorted issues, it is those areas where empathy is in seemingly short supply where global failures seem to occur. This fall’s latest tragedy, the flooding in New Orleans , became a disaster of class and race when it became clear that sincere empathy was missing on the part of many in areas of leadership. When the empathy gap between journalistic accounts on the ground and passive, process-oriented statements from leadership became mind-bogglingly large, the disaster became more than a loss of life and property, but rather a loss of innocence and faith in institutions. The photo opportunities and PR effort that followed did little to address that initial failure – when we cease to consider what it would be like to endure the suffering of others, we become less than what we should aim to be. When we view the Superdome refugees as “other” rather than “us”, removed only by distance and some fortuitous economic decisions by our grandfathers and grandmothers, then there is much more to be done than simply patching the levee system.

In light of my passion towards these issues, as I look towards my professional goals, I recognize that it is largely defined by areas where building empathy is required today’s leaders. Following from earning an MBA and the myriad opportunities that are found within, I hope to work with organizations that reach for the social innovation to today’s complex and difficult issues. The issues of class, of sustainable development, of alternative energies – all these require leadership that focuses on listening and empathy as much as it may focus today on education and outbound communication. These social ventures deserve the leadership to incorporate disparate needs and views into a coordinated vision; ultimately, that is the route to success and sustainability that most successful innovative ventures achieve. Successful cases, such as microloan programs around the world³, rely implicitly on an empathetic perspective that allowed for the possibility of poor people to make payments on time, reliably. It is that cohesion of private sector incentive and public sector goodwill that drives me to play a leadership role in building new and innovative social initiatives.

While the book⁴ remains unwritten today, I am clear that the core human-to-human connection of empathy matters most to me. Over the years I have seen its power to build successes and when I have seen failures, it is most tellingly absent. I hope to bring my talents and interests to the latter, to build and develop empathy, produce common visions from seemingly opposing viewpoints, and empower strong ideas to their sustainable realization. For as long as the world continues to be “people-driven,” the need to develop and enrich the connections that we social beings crave… empathy is ultimately the “raison d’être” of leadership and a fulfilling path towards success. It is what matters most, in that it makes all the accoutrements surrounding worth reaching for and achieving.

¹A student government entity charged with advocacy and judicial roles under both the Code of Academic Integrity and the Code of Student Conduct at Penn

²Using our newly minted hires, I recreated our presentation materials to reflect what recent applicants found appealing about Novantas. Early feedback on campus indicated that our “non-boilerplate” approach resonated in a way that has repositioned Novantas with greater levels of interest than in previous years of recruiting

³See “Lo Pequeño Es Hermoso: Banks in Mexico say that microloans are helping the poor while boosting their profits”, Sandoval, Ricardo in Fall 2005 issue of Stanford Social Innovation Review

⁴Alan Bell, empathy matters: Achieving Personal and Professional Success in a People-Driven World (Stanford University Press, 2035)

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