the pope visits philly! (and other exciting updates)

Sorry I haven't updated in awhile! The past few week have been hectic. One of the classes I am taking (Case Studies in Higher Education with Dr. Shaun Harper) is a semester long competition (think Project Runway: Higher Ed Edition). We were put into teams of five at the beginning of the term. Each Sunday at 5 p.m. Shaun sends everyone in the class a problem a current institution in the US is challenged with. Our team has until the following Sunday at 3 p.m. to submit a 1,000 word solution. As you can imagine, this class takes up a ton of my time. However, in the end it will be worth it. Whichever team wins the most cases come December wins a prize. Last year, the winning team won an all expense paid trip to Miami. Fingers crossed the team I am on ends up being the winning team... I could really use a trip to Miami drinking a Mai Tai on the beach!

To add to the chaos that is graduate school, this weekend the city of Philadelphia welcomed a very special guest...Pope Francis! Even when I came to visit Philadelphia in March for Penn Preview Weekend, Pope Francis was the talk of the town. The fact that #PopeWeekend2015, an event that was months in planning, was finally here was beyond exciting. All the major streets in Philly were shut down and the majority of the busses, trolleys, and subways were either not operating or on major detour and cars in the city this weekend were basically non-existent. It was actually kind of cool seeing no motor vehicles around an area that is usually booming with them. I was walking around 17th and Chestnut Street this weekend (a usually pretty busy area) and people were literally playing touch football in the middle of the road! A pretty cool sight to see...and probably something I will never be able to witness again.




Pope Francis in Philadelphia.

A very quiet Chestnut Street.

Only 78 more days until the Fall term is complete...can't believe how fast it is going. Until next time! Continue to wish me luck as I continue on this crazy adventure here at Penn.

-Austin