PennQuest

1. The one and only way to fast-track oneself to normalcy, coolness and widespread respect as a student at Penn; possession of copious amounts of hallucinogens, gyros or Argentinian sex slaves will also grant you access to this exclusive club but is generally frowned upon.

2. Your best experience Freshman year, perhaps during your entire college career. You will see your friends from PQ on campus and share with them forever a sacred bond. Those lowly friends who did not attend will frown and cry at not having been a part of this seminal experience. Do not pity them.

3. A pre-Fall Semester excursion to the Pennsylvania wilderness that is the dreaded Poconos- a magical place otherwise known for mediocre skiing and skeezy love motels. Three days of hiking, Mafia, soccer, ultimate, and utter awesome will make you rethink your stupid applications to other schools the previous spring. (Interestingly enough, Yale will have burned down during the trip, and every Princetonian will have been ravaged by a gang of howler monkeys by the time you return to campus for NSO).

Approx. 120 young applicants to the Greatest University on Earth will enter one of five school buses with only their wits and bare necessitites about them, scared entirely shitless. They will return to campus as true Women and Men, having been provided with the tools necessary for survival and success at Penn: namely, an admirable knowledge of Penn Fight Songs, a strong sense of belonging to a group of smelly, bizarre albeit lovable people, and the pride of having mooned the other buses for two hours straight. The creepy driver probably even gave you a high five afterwards.

You will never forget PQ. It's basically like Project Mayhem, without chemical burns, anarchy or schizophrenia, and a whole lot more fun.

PennQuesters make up the coolest, sexiest, and most talented group of students on the University of Pennsylvania’s campus; they sing better than Penn Masala, are more outdoorsy than the Outdoors Club, and make a better Gnutella and cucumber sandwich than the senior lunch ladies at Hillel. PennQuesters win any game of Mafia or “20 questions” in just one turn, out-match any number of Princetonians in volume with a bellowing chorus of “Hang Jeff Davis”, and turn even the most die-hard “Negative Nancy” or “Debbie Downer” into an unapologetically crude, butt-showingly gregarious social butterfly at the greatest Ivy League institution on this side of the Mississippi. Essentially, Pennquesters blaze even the rockiest trails with pizzazz and know how to have a good time while doing it.

Penn Quest (n): Much more than a trip filled with gorp, nutella concoctions, bean juice, group wars, swamp ass, and tent dance parties. Penn Quest is a state of mind acquired through experiences of going through packs of mole skin, eating 5 apples a day to make backpacks lighter, and bonding with complete strangers despite their smelly armpits or strange demeanor. It is an experience that molds frightened, pathetic freshmen into boisterous, embarrassing creatures that howl at the full moon and encourage swimming in murky water and naked rain dances. It is a step into a Twilight Zone type of dimension, in which showing off goods and fucking the rest is a common occurrence, and where anything or anyone looks good after 10 glasses of jungle juice. A simple piece of colored yarn somehow doesn’t appear to be so simple anymore, and instead symbolizes the loss of dignity and gain of savage faculty.

1. An ultra-exclusive pre-orientation program consisting of a 3-day hiking extravaganza through the Pennsylvania wild. It’s a fun-filled grimefest of epic proportions which takes in Penn’s finest incoming freshman and strips them of all sense of decorum until all that remains is a filthy, half-crazed pack of would-be students who have turned defecating into a competitive sport. (Two words: tandem pooping.) Bound together by their new state of enlightenment, PennQuesters fear but one thing and one thing only: the Fecal Finger;
2. There can be only one PennQuest;
3. Birthplace of the Fecal Finger;
4. PennQuest is where gingers, blacks, whites and brown people proudly live together in harmony.

PQ = extreme joy + ultimate bonding experience + bare butts
PQ > birthdays and Hannukah (maybe Christmas too)
PennCorp + PennAcle + PennArts < PQ
PQers = the bestest of friends
PQ > NSO
everyone else = secretly jealous of PQers
PQers &#8800; egotistical, just inherently superior
parties with PQers > gatherings other people call parties
“let’s all be gay” < “let’s all get laid”

PQ = phantasmajoric*
phantasmagoric= any PennQuester’s LIFE at Penn,
therefore
PQ= LIFE

*used as it appears on thesaurus.com, as a synonym for “whimsical,” “dreamy,” or “fantastic,” although I suppose the dictionary definition (an optical illusion produced by a magic lantern or the like in which figures increase or diminish in size, pass into each other, dissolve, etc. ) sometimes applies as well

1. The one and only way to fast-track oneself to normalcy, coolness and widespread respect as a student at Penn; possession of copious amounts of hallucinogens, gyros or Argentinian sex slaves will also grant you access to this exclusive club but is generally frowned upon.

2. Your best experience Freshman year, perhaps during your entire college career. You will see your friends from PQ on campus and share with them forever a sacred bond. Those lowly friends who did not attend will frown and cry at not having been a part of this seminal experience. Do not pity them.

3. A pre-Fall Semester excursion to the Pennsylvania wilderness that is the dreaded Poconos- a magical place otherwise known for mediocre skiing and skeezy love motels. Three days of hiking, Mafia, soccer, ultimate, and utter awesome will make you rethink your stupid applications to other schools the previous spring. (Interestingly enough, Yale will have burned down during the trip, and every Princetonian will have been ravaged by a gang of howler monkeys by the time you return to campus for NSO).

Approx. 120 young applicants to the Greatest University on Earth will enter one of five school buses with only their wits and bare necessitites about them, scared entirely shitless. They will return to campus as true Women and Men, having been provided with the tools necessary for survival and success at Penn: namely, an admirable knowledge of Penn Fight Songs, a strong sense of belonging to a group of smelly, bizarre albeit lovable people, and the pride of having mooned the other buses for two hours straight. The creepy driver probably even gave you a high five afterwards.

You will never forget PQ. It's basically like Project Mayhem, without chemical burns, anarchy or schizophrenia, and a whole lot more fun.

a. A quest on which a bunch of not yet humbled Penn freshman go into the mountains to find themselves pooping in then woods, swimming in mysterious bodies of water, and playing "never have I ever" while warming up by campfires. The students become humbled, but show proper pride in their newfound crudeness with spirited chants and the singing of Mulan's "We Are Men."

b. A spiritual experience that takes place on a three day long backpacking trip during which inexplicable bonds with the environment and random people who would probably otherwise never align themselves to moon together form.

c. An enigmatic group of people from UPenn who participate in both questionable and spontaneous activities both during their yearly camping trips and sometimes on campus. Unbeknownst to all members, the group is actually meant to promote hippie culture at their beloved, wholesome Ivy League institution. (damn straight that's diversity!)

d. 1) A preorientation group that results in mouth-wateringly wild and exclusive behavior during NSO. 2) One of various ways to prove one's worthiness of an Ivy-League welcome to college. 3) Initiation into the most interesting subculture that Penn has to offer.