For many Wharton students, their first-year summer can be a welcome respite as well as a time to return to local communities, explore distant foreign lands, or apply skills acquired during the school year.
There may only be 105 days of summer vacation, but an infinite number of opportunities. Three students show that first-year summers are growth and learning experiences, regardless of whether the role is traditionally “resume-ready.”
As a native of Lake County, Illinois, Darius Anta, C’28, W’28, has always known about the invisible lines dividing the county north of Chicago.
“The southeast side is better off, with access to lots of different organizations that provide substance-abuse treatments,” Darius said. “The majority of the population lives in an access desert.”
To Darius, this summer provided a means to disrupt the status quo.
“It was personally important to me that I spent my first-year summer [giving] back to something that I care about and impacts a lot of people’s lives,” said the dual-degree student in the Huntsman Program in International Studies & Business.
Darius interned at Nicasa Behavioral Health Services, which brings substance-abuse and addiction treatment to Lake County’s underserved areas. At most locations, an immense backlog of clients exists.
As a strategy analyst, Darius worked on that challenge.
Darius, who uses the pronoun they, recalled Operations, Information & Decisions 1010, where they learned how bottlenecks could cause outsized constraints. This led them to the culprit behind the wait: clinician documentation requirements.
Darius points out that clinicians spent hours formulating notes to be compatible with various bureaucracies. Working with executives, Darius deployed an AI tool to provide automatically compliant documentation, freeing clinicians to devote more time to clients.
They believe their summer provided the rare opportunity to apply class concepts.
“In a leaner team, I was able to actually put knowledge into action,” Darius said. “I saw how we could put clients instead of profits at the center of our business and still succeed.”
For Canadian Anita Vasserman, W’28, life in Philadelphia often feels like an upside-down version of her Toronto life, with different yet oddly familiar slang, traditions, and foods. When the opportunity arose to truly go upside down in the Land Down Under with Penn’s Global Research and Internship Program (GRIP), she thought she was ready.
Before Sydney, Anita assumed she had already seen the two sides of business: the American one (fast-paced and high-stress) and the Canadian one (slower-moving and more people-centric).
In Australia, she realized business culture is a spectrum. Sydney is more relaxed than Canada, and that took Anita time to adjust.
“When I had a meeting with my boss at 9:00, that meant she would show up at 9:15, and that was the norm,” Anita said.
Soon, she found herself preferring the chilled-out Aussie atmosphere, since it helped her build stronger relationships with her colleagues. She felt more genuine and comfortable, engaging with others on a personal rather than professional level.
Lessons from moving to a second foreign country didn’t end at the office. Living on her own provided time for introspection, and exposure to a new culture helped Anita prioritize her values.
“There’s so much more beyond careers,” she said. “After you get a job, what comes after the 9-to-5 is just as important.”
Anita made friends her age through GRIP’s cohort-style experience. She found herself deeply appreciating the Australian concept of “mateship,” a cultural idiom that describes loyalty and unconditional friendship. She took night walks on the shoreline with friends and joined the Unofficial Run Club — 5:30 a.m. runs near the iconic Sydney Opera House.
“Life becomes so much more fun when you live in the moment rather than always looking ahead to your next preprofessional goal.”
For Katie Wu, W’28, summer was the season of dunking: both basketballs into nets and donuts into smooth, sugary glaze.
Katie returned home to San Francisco, where her family has operated a donut shop for nearly 20 years. Situated in the Tenderloin district, Gateway Croissants serves a diverse clientele, from executives to homeless individuals.
Working there, she became a jack-of-all-trades: staffing the register, frying bacon, polishing the floors, and bussing tables. The most important lessons, however, have been about the world outside.
Facing dramatic differences among customers inspired Katie to continue working with varied groups of people to improve communities.
“It’s influenced my decision to get an Urban Studies minor,” she said. “Until you see [the wealth disparity] firsthand, it doesn’t really register to you how big the issue is.”
In the afternoon, Katie transferred her people skills to the basketball court by helping her former high school coach run his private training business. Embracing familiar practice routines, the Penn women’s basketball student manager grew more confident and disciplined.
“I trust my Wharton education to prepare me for the technical [knowledge] and networking I’ll have to do for future internships,” she said. “But I really valued the untraditional work experiences I had this past summer because I was able to grow as a person.”
Katie found herself learning how to work with everyone — whether on the court or at Gateway Croissants’ cash register — gaining skills universal to small family businesses or the corporate world.
“It’s just a great thing about how my life has worked out,” Katie said. “I’ve gained a better sense of the world, instead of just sticking to smaller segments of people.”
— Alan Li, W’28
Posted: December 15, 2025
