On a freezing January snow day, Max Annunziata (C ’26) spent his day skiing in Clark Park with his friends, ending the day with a snowball fight. For Max, moments like these have become a defining part of his time at Penn. Max is the first to admit that Penn is intense, describing his first few months here as a constant “what the fuck” feeling. By quite literally taking a breath of fresh air, he found a strong sense of community in the Penn Outdoors Club and on Penn Ski—where he has hiked out to Wissahickon with his friends, traversed Blue Mountain, and biked around Philly just to clear his head. But stepping away from Penn is only part of his experience. When Max arrived on campus, he was also eager to have a stake in campus policies. Since campaigning for student government and putting his face on a poster was not exactly his thing, Max ended up joining the Student Committee on Undergraduate Education (SCUE) his freshman fall. Ever since, he has worked behind the scenes to advocate for the Penn student body, such as helping improve equity for club application processes and increasing transparency in participation grading.
Name: Max Annunziata
Hometown: San Francisco
Major: Economics, minor in Russian language, literature and culture
Activities: Student Committee on Undergraduate Education (SCUE), College Deans Advisory Board, Penn Ski, Penn Outdoors Club, Sphinx Senior Society, The Daily Pennsylvanian
Can you tell us about your involvement in the SCUE? What inspired you to get involved?
We like to say that SCUE is the nerdy branch of student government. It's also the oldest branch of student government. I joined my freshman fall. I feel like this is a very common experience at Penn, but I was involved in student government in high school. I was always somebody who had a pretty visceral reaction to the power dynamic in the classroom, the whole idea that there’s a little Emperor called the teacher that can control everything. I feel like my whole life has been built around kind of freaking out about that and trying to find ways to usurp that dynamic. When I got to Penn I was like holy shit, there are so many weird professors who do weird, crazy things, and I need to join something that will let me poke at that. For me, that was SCUE because I was totally unwilling to put my name and my face on a poster around Penn and tell people to vote for me and go get signatures. SCUE is just a great group of people—really, the kindest, sweetest, and engaged, but also not taking themselves too seriously.
What are some initiatives that you have led on SCUE that you’re most proud of?
I just termed out of the Chair External position, which is in charge of all the external meetings and DP interviews for SCUE. We also have a Chair Internal position which manages our 40 members. I think the whole psyche and the raison d’etre of the group is this idea that the Undergraduate Assembly (UA) is amazing at providing services and doing various projects and SCUE tries to work in the background and really push through really long lasting and important change backed by our student opinion research. You can often find us by the Arts Building giving out donuts for survey responses and bringing that data to administrators. The culmination of that and the most perfect example of that is our White Paper, which if you’ve heard of SCUE, you’ve probably heard of the White Paper. I was one of the two Executive Editors of the paper that came out in 2025 with Sophie Leung, who graduated last year. It’s a really big document and it put together years and years of research and recommendations that spanned everything from club application processes to participation grading in Wharton to Writing Seminar. That’s probably the thing I’m most proud of. It’s been a pretty insane four years at Penn, just a series of blow ups on campus with pretty huge repercussions. I was really proud of the way that SCUE was able to respond to that in a really mature way and put out statements that met the moment in a way that was important, while also holding onto our identity throughout all that. I think a great example is we never changed the name of our DEI committee, and that just mattered to us and mattered to SCUE.
While you’re involved in so much outside the classroom, are there any classes or relationships with professors that have been especially meaningful to you?
I took a class on the film director Andrei Tarkovsky with Professor Kevin Platt. He then designed the whole College Foundations First–Year Curriculum, the Kite pilot program, and asked me to be his undergraduate TA. That’s been one of the coolest parts of my senior year—I did it in the fall and I’m doing it again in the spring. He hired me without telling me it was at 8:30 a.m., which is evil, but honestly, it’s the best reason to wake up at 8:30 a.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
I think there’s something about having gone through some pretty eventful years at Penn that’s left all of us upperclassmen a little traumatized and a little bit shell shocked. Being in a classroom with 15 freshmen who are so curious, so smart—who often know as much or more than I do about the readings, but don’t have that kind of mistrust for some of their classmates of that sense of danger in the classroom that I think a lot of us developed—has been just one of the best, and most refreshing parts of being a TA in this classroom. Penn students do have a political consciousness; they are excited about the world, they want to change it, and they want to relate to their classmates on a really deep level and discuss tough things. I really want to shout out Kevin Platt, his class, and all of the students who’ve taken Kite and have been so fantastic. I’m always just wowed by how smart these students are.
What are your favorite ways to spend your free time?
Penn is such an intense place. I think some people are pretty ready for it when they step on campus, maybe a minority of people, but I definitely was not in that minority of people who knew what they were walking into. My first year here was definitely defined by a constant “oh my god” and “what the fuck” feeling. Getting outside or doing anything active was always a reset for me. In my first years I discovered the pool. I’m a really bad swimmer, I was the worst person by senior spring on our swim team in high school. But regardless, I know how to swim so that is a way to just clear my head. Now I run a lot. The Penn Outdoors Club has been great. I’ve loved getting out to Wissahickon and taking a hike with my friends. I also have a bike and I love to bike around Philly literally just to clear my head.
Getting away from Penn, either through Penn Outdoors Club or Penn Ski, has always been super important to me. Penn does not foster cultures of letting go—especially the kind of letting go that means really, truly getting outside, being with people, being happy, and forgetting the world for a bit. The Penn Outdoors Club makes getting away from Penn during fall and spring breaks really affordable. I think everybody, especially for their first couple years, should absolutely take advantage of that coming in. Penn Ski too—getting away for the weekend, going skiing with your buddies and with people who are just out there for the snow and for the friends.
How are you spending your snow day today?
Yesterday, I skied in Clark Park and popped some 180s. We had a really good time. Today there’s talk of a snowball fight.
Where on campus have you found the best sense of community?
That's the trick, isn’t it? Coming into Penn and finding community. I actually still live with the people who I lived with in 5 Green in Hill my freshman year—they are wonderful people and I got very lucky with them. And the Penn Outdoors Club was huge for me. The Outdoors Club I walked into in spring 2023 was a group of just the most mature, most welcoming, and kindest people. As a freshman at a new place like Penn—especially a place as intense as Penn—they modeled a version of adulthood and maturity and readiness to step into the world that was super important for me and felt a lot more authentic. They were true to themselves in a way that I don’t think Penn fosters. There were a couple of them that were really, truly passionate about conservation, and they were gonna go do that, even if it wasn’t gonna make them a lot of money, even if they weren’t sure where they were gonna live or what job they were gonna get. And they were always just trying to do fun things and be in community together. Shout out to Henry, Maddie, Guthrie, Brendan, Stinky, Jake, those people who lived on Delancey Street and just really brought me in my freshman year, that was a great experience.
When you reflect on your time in college, is there a specific moment or memory that stands out?
My roommate who lives directly below me is a film major. Our freshman spring, one of his assignments was to do a documentary of his world, and he did it about our 5 Green group. It’s a ridiculous video, and there’s parts in it that thank god he cut. It’s about a 15 minute documentary that he made of us, all in our pajamas, talking about ourselves, about our roommate problems, our dumb relationship problems, and our dumb nights out. It was so funny and silly that he actually made iterations our sophomore and junior years, and I think he’ll do one for our senior year. That video is great to have and I can always look back at that and be like, “oh my god, that was so ridiculous.”
What’s next for you after Penn?
I have no clue but I’ll figure it out. I spent my summers at a public defender’s office in San Francisco, so maybe I’d work for a public defender somewhere (if they’ll hire me).
Lightning Round Questions:
No–skip song? “If I Had a Boat” by Lyle Lovett
Early bird or night owl? Early bird, my brain doesn’t work at night
Favorite spot for food near campus? Alif Brew and Mini Mart
If you could travel anywhere in the world, where would you go? I’m a Russian minor, and I doubt I’ll be able to go to Russia for many, many years, but I would love to go to Russia someday.
Favorite ski mountain? Arapahoe Basin, Colorado
Favorite hike around Penn? The path around the Woodland Cemetery
There are two types of people at Penn… People that take SEPTA and people that Uber.
And you are? SEPTA all day!
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
