Penn Interview: Dean of Admissions at Penn

Great American universities, usually from a single location, foster a global presence and influence. I was an international student at the University of Pennsylvania, and so I know this from personal experience.

Eric Furda, the Dean of Admissions at Penn, was kind enough to speak with me about how Penn Admissions is "getting global". A big thank you to him for taking time out at one of the busiest times of the year for college admissions. Eric tweets here and blogs here, and is a Penn alumnus himself (C'87).

PennRamanan RaghavendranApril 16, 2014Comment

Book Reviews: Five of the Best (History)

The thread linking this post's reviews is that each book offers a view into 19th or 20th century Europe.

My reviews are those of an intellectual dilettante, and I make limited attempts to place works or their authors in a wider context. For example, a "professional" review of Joachim Fest's memoir would certainly allude to his role in the Historikerstreit, among other things. Book titles link to the Kindle store page.

Books and MusicRamanan RaghavendranMarch 24, 2014Lists, BooksComment

Satya Nadella: Only In America?

The appointment of Satya Nadella as CEO of Microsoft has been greeted with joy within the Indian American community and in his native country. I find Nadella's story, however, not especially illustrative of the "success" of Indians in America; there are plenty of prior examples, and there will be others in the future, as there have been for immigrant communities from the Jews to the Irish. That part of the story is a non-story.

A better illustration of the assimilation of Indian Americans may be their pro rata participation in major large-scale white collar crimes, as so brilliantly outlined by my Penn classmate, Anita Raghavan. Thereby showing that Indian Americans are just as good or bad as the rest of America -- what could be more illustrative of assimilation than that?

Tech and VCRamanan RaghavendranFebruary 18, 2014Comment

Roebuck, Ponting, Clarke and the Fall and Rise of Australian Cricket

Michael Clarke and his merry unchanged-throughout-the-series men have crushed England -- 5-0 in the Tests and up 3-1 in the one-dayers as of this writing -- and it is not too early for the Australian to envision a return to some kind of leadership, if not the dominance of the Steve Waugh era. This Aussie team is an aging one, but there is something about it that suggests the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.

This most recent peak follows a trough whose marker, in my view, isn't the retirements of the all-time greats at the end of the 2006-07 Ashes. Rather the buoy marking the place where Australian cricket subsided the last time has the name of Peter Roebuck emblazoned on it. For it is Roebuck who called for Australian captain Ricky Ponting's head on a platter in a famous headline. "Arrogant Ponting must be fired" was the leader. From a member of the one-eyed Australian media, this was an unprecedented volley.

OddmentsRamanan RaghavendranJanuary 24, 2014 Comments