Broke and Homeless Ivy Leaguer goes Viral

Eric Augenbraun’s (C’10) and Stephen Stewart’s (C’10) idea for a prank may very well turn into a potential web video series called “The Collegiate Bum”.

Apparently Eric and Stephen were thinking of a way to prank their friend. They were determined on creating a fake DP article talking about how their friend was homeless and managed to make his way through Penn without having a dorm or apartment, never paying for books, etc. (“owing in part to the ridiculous price of a Penn education” Eric says).

Eric tells me, “we thought the idea was too good to waste on a prank and we were both interested in making a web series. We made the little trailer that night and we liked the response to it so we decided to go through with it.”

The team is working on the writing for the first episode right now and it should be out by Feb. 28. Stay tuned!

Click here to check out “The Collegiate Bum”
Starring Eric Augenbraun (C’10), Isaiah Greene (C’10), Paul Pennington (C’10), Chidi Ahaghotu (C’10), RJ Ferguson (C’10), and Erin Marshall (C’10).

Speaking of broke Penn kids, this reminds me of Angela Nisel (C’98) and her book The Broke Diaries. Angela was an early blogger back as an undergrad who documented her daily humorous accounts of her struggles trying to make it through Penn on little money. As a result of her unique voice, she landed up in Hollywood writing for the TV show Scrubs (and was even featured on an Oprah episode!).