All incoming students at Penn State New Kensington participate in the First Year Summer Discussion. Students are asked to read an article or listen to a podcast episode over the summer, then come prepared to discuss it during Welcome Days in August.  

The goals of the annual First Year Summer Discussion are to:

  • encourage you to think critically about important issues
  • provide a shared experience for new students on the campus

The 2024 Podcast selection:

Episode: How to Make the Most of Your Twenties 
Podcast: ReThinking with Adam Grant

What do you need to do?

  • Listen to the episode prior to Welcome Days in August.  
  • Be prepared to discuss the issues it raises and how they pertain to your own life.
  • Share your ideas with your fellow classmates!

Past selections include:

  • What's the Future for AI?, New York Times article by Cade Metz (2023)
  • College Students are not OK, New York Times article by Jonathan Malesic (2022)
  • All Minus One: John Stuart Mill's Ideas on Free Speech, Heterodox Academy (2021)
  • The Legacy of the Pandemic: 11 Ways it Will Change the Way We Live, Vox article (2020)
  • Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World--and Why Things Are Better Than You Think, by Hans Rosling  (2019)
  • Callings: The Purpose and Passion of Work, edited by Dave Isay (2018)
  • Weaponized Lies: How to Think Critically in the Post-Truth Era, by Daniel J. Levitin (2017)
  • Flight 93: The Story, the Aftermath, and the Legacy of American Courage on 9/1, by Tom McMillan (2016)
  • The Boom: How Fracking Ignited the American Energy Revolution and Changed the World, by Russell Gold (2015) (A Penn State Reads selection)
  • This I Believe, Life Lessons, edited by Dan Gediman (2014)
  • Perks of Being a Wallflower, by Stephen Chbosky (2013)
  • Round Ireland with a Fridge, by Tony Hawks (2012)
  • My Maasai Life: From Suburbia to Savannah, by Robin Wiszowaty  (2011)
  • Make the Impossible Possible, by Bill Strickland  (2010)
  • The Last Lecture, by Randy Pausch  (2009)
  • Persepolis, by Marjane Satrapi  (2008)
  • Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress, by Dai Sijie (2007)
  • Strapped: Why America’s 20- and 30-Somethings Can’t Get Ahead, by Tamara Draut (2006)
  • Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America, by Barbara Ehrenreich (2005)