All incoming students at Penn State New Kensington participate in the First Year Summer Reading Program. Students will be provided with access to an assigned article over the summer, then asked to read it and come prepared to discuss it during Welcome Days in August.  

The goals of the annual First Year Summer Reading Program are to:

  • encourage you to read and think critically
  • give you a taste of what skills will be required of you in college
  • provide a shared experience for new students on the campus
  • enhance a sense of community between students, faculty, and staff by giving us something in common to discuss

The 2023 reading selection:

What's the Future for A.I.?
New York Times, March 31, 2023
Cade Metz

Having trouble accessing the article?
Get a free New York Times account via the Penn State Student News Readership Program. 

What do you need to do?

  • Read 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 reading selections include:

  • 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)