He went on to tell us about this strange policy — as if it was the first we had heard of it — expressing his sincere regret that he was forced to give a lower grade than what he believed his students deserved. “If you had gone to Harvard or Brown, you could all have had As,” he said.
For me, that’s all he had to say. Only a few springs ago, I was faced with a very difficult, though incredibly fortunate, choice between two great schools: Princeton and Brown. My preceptor’s infuriating sensibility — infuriating only because some of Princeton’s administrators are barely as level-headed — implied in personally blunt terms that I had made the wrong decision. Maybe I should have gone to Brown.
To be sure, life would have been different. The stereotypes say that Princeton is stuffy and Brown is filled with treehuggers and pot-smoking hippies. Not all stereotypes are true, but some are grounded in degrees of truth and I think that there is some legitimacy to the prejudices against both Princeton and Brown.
Brown has long held a vibrant dedication to defying tradition and spitting on the norms. Its academic policies in particular reflect this unique character. The New Curriculum allows students considerable academic liberties like the ability to take all classes pass/fail and an absence of distribution requirements. No grade deflation, no STs, no pass/D/fail limit. It really sounds great.
It’s not to say that Brown is some stress-free paradise for the academically burnt out. Brown is a terrific school, with challenging classes and international renown. Sure, it is conceivable that a student intent on the easiest academic experience available to him could go through Brown taking the easiest classes pass/fail. But the odds are that, with a 12 percent acceptance rate, Brown probably accepts relatively few slackers.
My impression, from the conversations I have had with friends at Brown and the articles I have read about the school, is that Brown offers an incredible academic experience. Though they might give As to students who deserve them — ah the lunacy! — Brown promotes an environment conducive to passionate scholarship and yet sensitive to the stress that academics can produce.
This is getting depressing.
I think it fair to say that Princeton is far more stressful than Brown, posing a rather disturbing question: If I could have had an equally outstanding education at Brown, why did I choose Princeton and the stressful academic experience it entails? More germane to the topic at hand, did I make a mistake in coming here?
I know in my heart that Princeton was the right place for me. And even now, as I lambast our school for misguided policies and condemn what I believe is a senseless culture of stress that contributes nothing to the academic experience, — I say honestly that I wouldn’t trade Princeton for a thing. I still, even now, would choose Princeton over Brown.
In the past few weeks, I have discovered the depressing truth: We are perverse gluttons for stress. We complain, and we whine, and we rail against the administration for policies we recognize as unfair. And yet when push comes to an honest shove, we wouldn’t have it any other way.
Princeton is hard, and sometimes it is unfair, but if it were anything but what it is, it wouldn’t be Princeton, and we’d have nothing to love.
I’ll borrow a joke from the genius of Woody Allen, whose words might make sense of our deep-seated satisfaction in Princeton stress.
A guy goes to a shrink and says, “Doc, my brother’s crazy. He thinks he’s a chicken.” The doctor asks “Why don’t you turn him in?”
“I would, but I need the eggs.”
For me, the senseless need for some intangible, non existent trophy defines our Princeton experience. It’s why our protests of grade deflation are half-hearted and why our complaints are misdirected if placed at anyone but ourselves. This academic environment is crazy, and it doesn’t always make sense, but we go through it anyway just because we need the “eggs” that a Princeton diploma can provide.
If only we didn’t …
Peter Zakin is a sophomore from New York. He can be reached at pzakin@princeton.edu.
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