Let’s be honest. It’s only three weeks into the year, and you’ve already given up on your daily trips to Pottruck. We here at Street are sick of the boilerplate, and we bet you are too. New Year’s resolutions have become a tired cliché, infamously repetitive, and a guaranteed way to start your year with immediate failure. But it’s the Year of the Horse, and horses don’t stop—they keep going.
So, instead of accepting defeat, let us help you give 2026 another chance. Enjoy our curated list of truly life–changing resolutions.
—Insia Haque, Arts & Style editor
1. Break up with your closet
If you’re from a state that requires a plane ticket and not a train ride, you already know the struggle: too many clothes and never enough suitcase space. I’m an international student who paid far too much for College Butler just to babysit sweaters I wasn’t ready to part with, and maybe you did too. This year, be ready. Walk them to thrift stores around Center City. Buffalo Exchange will probably hand you four dollars and a polite smile, but you’ll leave with a lighter heart (and a lighter suitcase), knowing something you once loved is about to become someone else’s favorite.
—Lynn Yi, Arts beat
2. Break the ice, for real this time
Spring semester has sprung at the University of Pennsylvania, and students are beginning to settle into their new schedules, with new faces and new opportunities to meet new people.
You walk into your first lecture of the semester, find a nice seat with a good view, and wait for the professor to get right into the material. There’s only one problem. You look up at the screens and the lecture slides, ready to take notes, and see one word projected to the room: “Icebreakers!”
You’re gonna be sitting next to these people for months, so why not try to get to know them first, right? Whether it’s a formal introduction or an awkward lean–over to ask for a pencil, there’s no harm in making it a point to make friends in your new classes. You never know what might come out of it! That extra effort on your part could lead to a lifelong friendship, a brand new study group, or even someone to chat about the weekend with on dragging Monday mornings. All you have to do is say hi!
—Alex Nagler, Style beat
3. Let’s get physical (media)
Instead of listening to Spotify’s algorithm–generated playlist consisting of the same five Malcolm Todd songs, buy a vinyl of your favorite album and love it all over again. Put down the Libby app (or Archive of Our Own, I don’t judge) and get a copy of that book you haven’t stopped thinking about since you last read it. Scribble your thoughts in the margins, wear down the grooves in that vinyl, highlight to your heart’s content, and leave your mark on the things that are meaningful to you. Less subscriptions, more collections!
Don’t know where to start? Try your hand at collecting every print edition of Street this year, and keep your eyes peeled for our annual Love Issue coming out soon.
—Anjali Kalanidhi, Arts beat
4. Connect through casual concert–going
A little sappy, but here it goes: I always enjoy asking people about their favorite musicians, admittedly somewhat because I’m not very creative with icebreakers. On a long train ride, while stopping for a cup of coffee, even when pausing for breath on a run, you can tell a lot about people by what sounds they choose to fill their lives with. Conversations very rarely have proper rhetorical structure, but somehow every conversation I’ve had about musicians has ended with a call to action: the other person insisting I just have to see them live.
I used to laugh it off—pssh, Mitski? What is that? A brand of Russian baseball gloves?—but, recently, I’ve started taking their word for it. From confessional country in a venue barely larger than a classroom to huge arena rock concerts complete with pyrotechnics, I’ve found joy and belonging in groups of people with whom I share very little otherwise. It doesn’t matter if they’re headbanging metalheads or tote–carrying lo–fi lovers, their passion is infectious.
Even if you don’t end up loving the concert, it’s good to be reminded of how easy it can be for us to connect to others in an age where it seems so hard, with music as a wingman. And in case you do? In exchange for a few hours of your time and the price of a couple of coffees, you’ll have found something new and meaningful. Plus, you get to say you were a fan before they were cool.
—Jason Zhao, Style beat
5. Gorge yourself on Grommons
Too many people find themselves suffering from excess at the end of the semester. Why would you charge your parents to give you meal swipes and dining dollars just for that allowance to go into the void? Rage, rage against the dying of the semester, and expend every tap of your Penn card that you can.
In 2026, I urge you to take advantage of the “gourmet” in Gourmet Grocer and taste the sweet carcass of a rotisserie chicken before your 8:30 a.m. class in DRL. No utensils necessary—just go at it on Locust Walk. With one meal swipe, you can get both a pack of chicken, a cup of macaroni and cheese, and enough joy to get you through the harsh winter. My resolution is to use up those swipes more at the good ol’ Grommons, and I hope you do the same. Thanksgiving might just be in November, but you can be grateful for this deal any day!
—Aaron Tokay, Arts beat
6. Adopt an upperclassman
While we’re talking swipes, why not share your dining discoveries with an upperclassman? No, I’m not just writing this because I’m a scorned senior with zero dining dollars to my name. No bias at all—if you are an underclassman with too many swipes to count, I highly recommend sharing your blessings with your old and decrepit peers. Make a routine of it! Whether they’re the person carrying you in your group project or the wise mentor in whatever club you’re in, I guarantee they’ll appreciate it.
Not only will you get more bang for your buck, putting those otherwise–forgotten swipes to good use, but you’ll also be sharing the gift of everlasting friendship, bridging the age gap, and easing the hunger of their empty, sorely unemployed bellies. Now, please, swipe me into Lauder.
—Insia Haque, Arts & Style editor
7. Wink at a stranger on Locust Walk
“On the Street: Nobody Watches, Everyone Performs” Vivian Gornick’s seminal 1996 essay is titled. I return to this piece every time I question why I’m working for a publication called “34th Street”—through my time here, I’ve come to appreciate the street as the most rudimentary theater of culture, into which we each carry our daily joys and jealousies. “I have to realize the street gives me back a primitive reflection of whatever load of hope or fear I am carrying about with me that day,” Gornick writes.
On Locust Walk, we speedwalk the too–tight 15 minutes between classes; we tell long–lost friends from freshman year, “we absolutely need to get coffee,” while knowing we never would; we gingerly debate whether to wave hi to the classmate you maybe know, but not really. Acquaintanceships are prolonged, exes are avoided, and Goyard bags are swung over shoulders. On a lazy day, I plug in my AirPods and avoid everyone’s gaze, instead opting to judge the designer bag of the girl in front of me. But whenever that almost–stranger waves back, or that lost friend tells an inside joke I’d forgotten about, I walk the rest of Locust with the biggest smile on my face. Then, suddenly, all those rejections fade away; one meaningful connection makes them all worth it.
This new year, remember that the street can be both a place of isolation or connection, depending on what you choose. Everybody is anxious, but who’s really watching? Seriously—why not wink at someone random on Locust? Worst case, you get a good laugh out of it; best case, y’all hit it off.
—Laura Gao, Arts & Style editor
8. Bonus: Inspire and be inspired
Purported to be some of the world’s brightest minds and future leaders, it’s truly a shame that the most innovative Penn students are those pumping out vibe–coded products and founding the next brainless, artificial intelligence–powered startups.
So, we command you, dear reader: create something. Don’t know what to make? Go outside. Better yet, go beyond the 300 acres of campus and into the real world. Allow the art of the world’s Mural Capital to move you to the point of creation, be it the works in one of Philly’s dozens of museums and libraries or the graffiti on the outsides of those buildings.
Need a place to start? You’re in luck: Street’s application for writers, designers, and photographers is open until 11:59 p.m. on Friday, Jan. 23, 2026.
