There's no denying that Princeton is a diverse place. Princeton gathers a crosssection of students diverse in background and ideas. The Class of 2011, for instance, is 37.1 percent racial minorities; an additional 11.2 percent are international students. This year's admission viewbook lists 41 multicultural student organizations from Accion Latina y Amigos to the Union of Multiracial and Multicultural students; the opposite page identifies 20 religious organizations. The old boys' club seems like a relic from the days of F. Scott Fitzgerald '17.
Two years after freshman week, however, the upperclass move-in experience is not about the excitement of the new and exotic, but the old and familiar. The shock of upperclass housing is mitigated by the comfort of living in closer proximity to friends from different residential colleges. Eating club backyards are trampled by giddy upperclassmen reuniting with their friends as well as by hordes of freshmen standing around in large groups.
Familiarity, however, comes at the cost of diverse interaction. By junior year, people from the same Greek organizations fill entire entryways; students from similar parts of the country share rooms. Whereas freshmen throngs consist of people who look different from each other, senior throngs consist of people who look the same.
There are clear institutional structures that facilitate this progression. Freshman year, Princetonians are inundated with opportunities to hang out with people they may have absolutely nothing in common with. Outdoor Action, Community Action and random Facebook friending based on physical appearances are all conducive to acquainting people with different interests. Once freshmen get to campus, they are asked to attend talks as a class and mingle at Alcohol Initiative events.
Housing places freshmen with similar living habits together, which still brings together people from opposite sides of the world, opposite religious views and so on. While many former roommates, dorm mates and hall mates do keep in touch during their four years at Princeton, closer friendships often form later with the inception of classes and extracurricular activities.
It's only expected that people meet others with similar interests through their precepts and activities; this would happen at any school. But what makes the drop in exposure to a diverse group of people so drastic at Princeton is the selection of a major, joining an eating club and withdrawal from the residential college, all of which occur more or less simultaneously at the end of sophomore year. Suddenly, students are expected to spend more time than ever in a few academic buildings with others of similar academic interest and then eat their meals at clubs that are comprised of people who met each other through classes and extracurricular activities.
Though you can't fault the natural human tendency to bond with similar people, upperclassmen may fall into the trap of being too comfortable as they allow themselves to mingle with only others in their major or eating club. I'm not at risk of only spending time in my eating club since I'm an independent student, but I still find myself seeing a smaller circle of people throughout my day as compared to freshman year. This is mostly because I spend time at fewer places on campus. I rarely venture outside my department, Firestone and the few eating clubs my friends belong to.
There are only a few channels outside of residential colleges that are open to upperclassmen who want to embrace diversity of all kinds on campus. Sustained Dialogue asks students to dedicate time each week for conversation with the same group of people who didn't know each other previously. USG Undergraduate Life chair Arthur Levy '10 cited the Alcohol Coalition Committee to me as an instance of bringing people with varied social habits together, connecting students who abstain from alcohol with officers of eating clubs.
But we shouldn't only come together when we're discussing weighty issues and having involved dialogue; what we need is hang-out time. For starters, inter-eating club events, a greater number of free meals in dining halls for upperclassmen and class-sponsored activities would encourage upperclassmen to step outside their dorms.
While these one-time interactions may not all turn into enduring friendships, juniors and seniors should take advantage of the myriad of personalities and perspectives before heading out to the real world. It's likely that Princeton is more demographically diverse than most neighborhoods in this country. Even if it's intimidating to approach that person who you wrote off as weird - or just different from you - we are all Princetonians.
Cindy Hong is a Wilson School major from Princeton, N.J. She can be reached at cindyh@princeton.edu.
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