Your most important credits may be those earned outside the classroom.

In Philly, the mixing of academics with actual work is not only easy—it’s pretty much the rule. Whatever your interests, there’s surely a match and a mentor.

Pursuing life science or medicine? The region ranks third in the nation for the number of health professions and related degrees conferred. Among the 100 hospitals in the area is the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, rated the top Children’s Hospital by both U.S. News and World Report and Child magazine.

Many creative types call Philadelphia Hollywood East: 34-year-old writer-director M. Night Shyamalan studied film in the Big Apple only to return home and score big with The Sixth Sense, which was nominated for six Academy Awards. Shyamalan went on to shoot the hits Unbreakable, Signs, and The Village in and around Philadelphia, and is fulfilling his promise to film all of his movies in his hometown. Other local celebs who have maintained strong ties to their hometown include Will Smith and Kevin Bacon.

Interested in a career in communications? Philly has 20 local daily and weekly newspapers, 10 television stations, over 17 radio stations, and 10 magazines, where you can get more than your foot in the door. Land an internship at the Philadelphia Inquirer, or at Penn’s nationally known public radio station, WXPN.

With a quick look in any of those newspapers you’ll realize why the biggest names on and off Wall Street all have offices in the area. Accenture, DuPont, Goldman Sachs, Price Waterhouse Coopers, Vanguard Funds, SEI Investments, just to name a few—and many of them have openings for promising college students.

Alas, lists like this are futile. It would take a book to do more than scratch the surface—there are so many talents and so many incubators of talent in Philadelphia.

Even if you have no idea yet of what you want to do after college, there’s nothing like being in the right place when the time comes. Philadelphia has all the opportunities, action, and affordability you won’t find in other major east coast cities. Philadelphia is the right place.

Any way you look at it, Philadelphia is a launch pad for tomorrow’s leaders. As a world-class city with a near-perfect balance of
colleges, commerce, and culture, it’s a dream scene for students. Here, the city itself is the classroom, and college is just the start of a lifelong adventure in learning.