International Student Life
The programs are designed to help academic, residential, and social life at Penn blend into a single cohesive experience. Penn combines a leafy, architecturally distinguished campus with all the advantages of a dynamic, culturally rich East-coast metropolis. Penn features many resources beyond the classroom.
Penn embraces a college house system that comprises eleven residential communities. Every house provides a common set of features, including faculty masters, house deans, advising, and support for academic and co-curricular activities. Yet each house retains its own distinctive atmosphere, personality, and quirks—and its own coat of arms.
The architecture of the houses is wildly disparate. You could live high above campus in a modern 24-story skyscraper with panoramic views of the city, or in one of the historic parts of the Quad, with slanted ceilings, wood floors, and frisbee-strewn courtyards. Philadelphia itself is home to some of the country's best and most unique dining— in every price range.
Penn offers a variety of dining choices on and around campus, from inexpensive fare to gourmet feasts. Penn Dining Services provides flexible meal plans, including daily entrees, vegetarian selections, and a salad bar in each dining room. Kosher? No problem. College house commissaries feature wide-ranging menus and even a Guest Chef Series, where chefs from fine local restaurants take over a dining hall for a night and create a special menu.
Through student activities the students discover how to enhance their college experience beyond the classroom. Penn offers an astounding number of ways to get involved in campus activities. Almost every day, Locust Walk is crowded with club representatives selling tickets to student performances, holding bake sales for social causes, or simply urging you to join their group. There are clubs and organizations based on civic engagement, sports, cultural background, politics and many more.
Since the University was founded in 1740, Penn songs have been a central part of campus life. Many of the songs were written by students during their years at Penn. Here are four samples, performed by University of Pennsylvania Glee Club and the University of Pennsylvania Band.
- Afterglow
- The Red and the Blue
- Fight on, Pennsylvania!
- Hail, Alma Mater (The Band March)
Readings from the Writers House
Founded in 1995 by a group of students, faculty, staff and alumni, the Kelly Writers House is an actual 13-room house at 3805 Locust Walk on Penn's campus that serves as a center for writers of all kinds and from all disciplines. Each semester the Writers House hosts about 150 public programs and projects—poetry readings, film screenings, seminars, web magazines, lectures, dinners, radio broadcasts, workshops, art exhibits, and musical performances.
