Quote:
Originally Posted by ajaxean
You should get out more then: Bronx Community College (yes, the Bronx) with their extremely impressive (imo) BRAND NEW library. Heck, even Girard College in North Philly, a goddamn high school, has a more beautiful campus then Penn.
I just don't think this claim has any basis in reality. Penn's campus is grossly inferior compared to tons of other prominent American universities: UVA, Duke, UChicago, Yale, UMichigan, Berkley, Princeton, Boston College, Columbia, Harvard, William and Mary, Stanford, WashU, University of Washington, UCLA, Notre Dame, MIT, Rice, and I could go on and on and on. Frankly, I can hardly think of any prominent national university with a discernibly worse campus than Penn's, except maybe NYU given that they don't really have a campus at all.
Two or three weeks ago, a friend visited Penn on a college tour with her younger sibling. Penn was her first stop, and she said she thought it looked really nice. Then she went to other major East Coast colleges and said she was blown away by how amazing they looked and realized that Penn's campus was actually surprisingly underwhelming compared to the competition. Sure, Penn is nice compared to like suburbs or shopping malls. It's not that nice when compared to major historic universities. |
And I know plenty of people who have said that Penn's campus is better/nicer than at least half of the supposedly superior institutions that you mentioned.
I attended Columbia and have visited Harvard and MIT and would say that I much prefer Penn's campus to all three. I think a lot of people have dreamy notions about what college campuses are supposed to look like (lots of bilateral symmetry and the prerequisite Collegiate Gothic or neo fill-in-the-blank style architecture) This stuff looks really nice in brochures and can be seductive when you're passing through on a tour and imagining yourself as a bright young scholar on your way to class in dark-wood paneled classrooms. The reality (for me at least) is that when you live with it on a daily basis, it becomes just plain boring and monotonous.
This point was driven home to me recently by a visit to UNC Charlotte's campus. I think that many on this forum would not be too impressed by it. It does, however, have most of the ingredients that you can find at some of the more prestigious colleges that you mentioned. Bilateral symmetry out the wazoo? Check. A lot of brick and stone? Check. Courtyards everywhere? Check. What it doesn't have is the highly intricate ornamentation and patina of age. Yes, it's trying really hard to be like the older campuses, and in the process, it's revealing that this "collegiate" look is kinda shallow. It's nice because it's old and has a lot of ornamentation. It's a one trick pony.
Penn is different. It's not constrained by the same ideas/ideals. It feels a lot more like it's part of the city--it interacts with the grid. Does it have some nice, pretty buildings? Sure, but it doesn't beat you over the head with them. That Penn still feels like a campus without this pre-planned hullabaloo, is a testament to its character and quality, in my opinion.
In short, you're wrong.
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