We had the opportunity of interviewing Uday Tripathi, a student at the University of Pennsylvania about: College Life
Uday is:
The President of MUSE Consulting,
The President of Engineers in Medicine,
An Engineering Teaching Assistant,
Co-Founder of Golden Gate Editing (college application consultant),
Valedictorian of his class in high school,
Scorer of 5s on all of 8 of his AP exams,
Achiever of perfect scores on three SAT subject tests,
A Merit Semifinalist,
and a Scholar Athlete.
Key points Uday shared:
Penn definitely fits the “work hard, play hard” vibe. Everyone is very intelligent but at the same time, most of the students are extremely personable and easy to talk to.
My priorities have definitely shifted in college but looking back lie in the following order: mental/physical health, social community, career, coursework, and club commitments.
Q: What is the campus culture of UPenn like?
A: Penn definitely fits the “work hard, play hard” vibe. Everyone is very intelligent but at the same time, most of the students are extremely personable and easy to talk to. Most people are friendly and more than happy to grab coffee or a drink. Penn is more pre-professional than I thought when going in; everyone is focused on their future career and sometimes will sacrifice other things to maintain this focus. However, this does not create a toxic environment as one might expect, but rather creates healthy competition that drives students to do even better. In my experiences in Penn Engineering, students are extremely collaborative and group study sessions are some of the most fun times of college.
Q: You founded the organization Golden Gate Editing, which provides help on college applications. What inspired you to found this organization?
A: Golden Gate Editing is an application editing service that I started with my roommate the summer after our freshman year. Both of us attended competitive Bay Area high schools and knew the market for essay editors in the area. However, we also knew the high prices of most of the professionals and between the two of us had already edited several of our friends’ essays who ended up being admitted to Ivy-League type schools. We thought that we could provide a similar service at a fraction of the cost and Golden Gate Editing was born. We are currently in our third application cycle and it has been great to see the business grow and receive excited emails from our former clients (who have received admission to top schools like Stanford, MIT, Penn, and Columbia)!
Q: What are your priorities in college?
A: My priorities have definitely shifted in college but looking back lie in the following order: mental/physical health, social community, career, coursework, and club commitments. There was definitely a time when career/coursework came before anything else but as I have gone through college I have realized those things will come and the first two priorities are far more important.
Learn more about Uday and his experience on his LinkedIn account.
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