Penn Undergrads You Should Know About Vol. 4

What do you love about music? I use music for two reasons, both are very functional. The first reason is to help me accomplish things via making a particular experience more enjoyable. I have specific playlists for studying, working out, hanging out, getting pumped up, cleaning etc. The second reason is to balance out my moods. Like any college student, I often find myself dismayed or frustrated by any particular aspect of my life. I find that music brings me back to my center and allows me to proceed with my day.  What are you involved in that allows you to express/explore that? Because of all the music I listen to I have slowly developed a way to categorize and organize music in a meaningful way. On my Spotify account, I have a lot of playlists that help me keep track of good music. Every month I make a new playlist and add all the new songs I hear during the month onto it. I started doing this around August 2012 so I have a kind of journal of what I was listening to every month for over two years which I think is pretty cool.

How’d you get started? I made a playlist on Spotify my sophomore year and posted it on the Spotify music apps while forcing my friends to subscribe. I added to the playlist quite frequently and continued to promote it. Throughout my Junior year it kept growing pretty quickly and now with it being around a year and a half old, it has over 70,000 followers. The coolest part is when small artists from all over the world (Germany, Portugal, etc.) contacted me to add their music to my playlist. I think it is so gratifying to create something that a ton of people all around the world use. (Check out Taylor’s “Superior Study Playlist” here!)

What/Who is your biggest inspiration and why? Who do you admire? I know this may sound weird but my biggest inspirations are the people who make the things I use. Every day I interact with so many manmade objects that make my life so much easier and more enjoyable. I appreciate the great minds who had the foresight and ability to create these things, I don’t know all their names but I aspire to be one of them in my future. I want to make things that other people use, I want to create something that can seamlessly integrate with their lives and improve it (even if just by a small amount).

What’s your favorite Penn tradition? My favorite Penn Tradition is Spring Fling. It single handedly makes up for the entire winter.