On behalf of the entire Wharton Journal staff, welcome back to Wharton.  By now, you’ve hopefully all returned from your exotic travels.  Whether you were in Southeast Asia with 350 of your closest classmates (rumor has it Wharton East will soon be opening in Phuket) or spent time with your family in Pittsburgh, we hope you’re ready for another semester of academics, recruiting, and socializing.

To the first years: congratulations on getting through the first semester.  You’ve survived your learning teams, the MGEC problem sets, and your costume planning for the White Party.  Now you are faced with the daunting task of recruiting.  Good luck on all of your interviews and most importantly, relax.  There are 850 of you and you’ll all get an internship, so be nice to each other.  And if you’re part of the 70% of the class who strangely wants to be a consultant……sorry.  Remember in your ninth case interview that you chose this.  When recruiting is over, make sure to buy a drink for your friend that got his dream job and another drink for your friend who didn’t.

To the second years: this is it.  The beginning of the end.  Soon, it’ll be time to return to the working world, to a place where attendance is required – and for at least five days a week.  In this final semester, throw yourself back into the Wharton experience.  Go back to Pub, go to the theme party you’re on the fence about, and spend as much time as you can with the amazing people you’ve met here.  Before we know it, the WG’14ers will be spreading out across the world, so don’t regret not spending time with them now.

The spring semester is different in a lot of ways than fall.  It’s more relaxed, people pay a little less attention in class and go to just the really good parties, and everyone tends to escape the Wharton bubble a little more.  There’s the Breckenridge invasion where the après ski party outfit is far more impressive than how difficult a slope you mastered.  Spring Break will break records with yet another round of exotic travels, and then before you know it, the 2Y’s will be off to Beach Week to put a final nail in the coffin of bad decisions.  Oh, and don’t forget about Follies or Wharton 54, because it’s never too soon to get a theme outfit or practice some humility.

Throughout the semester, the Journal will be here to keep you updated on what’s happening at Wharton.  If you haven’t yet contributed to the newspaper, write an article or appear in a video this semester.  All of you have amazing experiences that your classmates really would love to learn about.  Plus, you get a t-shirt….enough said.

Producing this paper on a weekly basis requires a large amount of work, but the staff of the Journal makes this process look easy.  They are dedicated to keeping the Journal relevant and focused on real student life at Wharton in the changing face of journalism and publishing.  We’d like to offer a sincere thanks for all of the hard work that the staff puts in – it’s an honor to see your innovation and dedication to keeping Wharton’s independent newspaper going. Here’s to the next semester!

Welcome back, Wharton.  We’ve only got sixteen more weeks until summer…make them count.