Michele Myers, former president of Sarah Lawrence College, called liberal arts “an education in which students learn how to learn, an education that emphasizes the forming rather than filling of minds, an education that renders our graduates adaptive to any marketplace, curious about whatever world is around them, and resourceful enough to change with the times.” The A.B. curriculum is often advertised as the epitome of this intellectual ideal, while the B.S.E. curriculum is seen as moving as close to “vocational” training as Princeton’s liberal arts requirements will allow. That is not the case. On the B.S.E. track, we’re given academic building blocks early so that we have the liberty to be creative with our knowledge in our upperclass years. Invention and innovation are born out of a thorough knowledge of what already exists and, consequently, a clear picture of what can be improved.
On the A.B. track, the schedule is essentially inverted. The free-form nature of the first two years come to a sudden halt when it’s time to buckle down and complete requirements. There are some people who follow a subject they’re passionate about without regard for fulfilling departmental prerequisites and end up fitting neatly into a specialty come sophomore spring, but there are many others who don’t find their major that easily. B.S.E. freshmen and sophomores, on the other hand, are already working toward their majors by fulfilling the prescribed class requirements, and this allows students to use those years to their full potential. B.S.E. students can acquire a great depth of knowledge, knowledge we can apply while still cultivating the liberal arts ideals of a desire for exploration and a greater appreciation for learning. This depth gives B.S.E.s the freedom to explore their field as well as develop their relationships with their department, and a personal relationship between student and concentration is a valuable source of motivation in upperclass independent work.
This has been apparent in my interactions with people who have JP drafts due for majors they declared about seven months ago, where three of those months were summer. For those students who took full advantage of their freedom to do a little of this and a little of that, the task of writing something of consequence in their chosen field is understandably daunting. For many, the major choice came down to the wire, and these people are thrown into writing a JP with little more than a perfunctory knowledge of a few different subjects and a brief overview of what their major entails, all with little personal association with the department.
As B.S.E. freshmen, we were already a part of the engineering school as soon as we sent in our matriculation. Included with our Nassau Hall embossed folders were letters from the dean, cordially welcoming us into the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. That early relationship instills confidence in the student because it introduces her to the workings of her potential department and gives her academic direction early on. Being assigned an engineering professor as a freshman adviser gives B.S.E.s an early foothold that makes them more prepared, I think, to take ownership of their place in their department come time to declare their major and consequently makes them bolder in their pursuit of innovation and academic advancement in their independent work. A close relationship like this with the A.B. departments would surely alleviate some of the stresses of independent work, as well as help guide the student in making a valuable contribution to a field of study. This would also allow the JP to be a valuable intellectual exercise without the bounds of unfamiliarity limiting the scope.
No matter our department, we all have the opportunity to get a remarkable education from this institution. Each moment in and out of the classroom adds to the Princeton experience we’ll take with us when we walk out FitzRandolph gate, and if we set out early to acheive the tenuous balance between purpose and exploration, we’ll leave having made the most of the things that Princeton has to offer.
Sophia LeMaire is a mechanical engineering major from Longmeadow, Mass. She can be reached at slemaire@princeton.edu.
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