A different state of mind

Even with our focus on liberal arts, there are plenty of people on this campus who don’t have the freedom to try out classes that aren’t requirements. As an engineer, I’ve had most of my schedule planned out since freshman year, with the elective spots being used for certificate classes and distribution requirements. Four years — eight semesters — really isn’t that much time for people of any major to shop around if they have a rigorous academic schedule. However, I’ve realized during my time here that you can be different even when you stay the same. While stepping out of your comfort zone can be a good exercise, I don’t think that realizing you are a similar person to who you were yesterday is a reason to have a quarter-life crisis. It’s all about perspective.

This semester, I am taking VIS 212: Introductory Photography. I’d walked past 185 Nassau Street innumerable times on my way to the Engineering Quadrangle, occasionally making eye contact with a visual arts student on the other side of Williams Street as she turned off into her world and I continued to mine. Although 185 Nassau Street is one of the E-Quad’s nearest departmental neighbors geographically, it maintained an air of mystery. On my first day of photography class, I discovered that on the inside, 185 Nassau Street felt surprisingly familiar. The building smelled faintly of paint, the classroom was as hard to find as all other classrooms, the bulletin boards were plastered with career and summer suggestions and the people in the main office were as helpful and friendly as any.

When class began and we went around the room introducing ourselves, it became apparent that this group was not a traditional bunch of visual arts students. We were almost entirely seniors in the hard sciences, math and engineering. However, as the class went on, the divide between photography and the motley assortment of people seemed to shrink. The instructor told us that if we are going to photograph on campus, we would need to look differently at the things we already know to get a good picture. He explained that loving what we look at can turn even the most mundane object into a stunning photograph. While it’s not presented in those terms in other disciplines, this thought is fundamental to anything in academics.

This observation means that even if we don’t have the luxury of diving into a completely new environment, we’re free to experience something novel by looking at the same things in new ways. Just as taking a good photo doesn’t require an exotic locale, diversifying your own Princeton experience doesn’t have to mean abandoning the things you know. On the contrary, diversification is about our being more fundamentally ourselves than we were before by not drawing arbitrary distinctions between disciplines and media and by seeing what the interests in the deep corners of our imaginations say about the world we already inhabit.

Many senior theses seem strangely myopic to people outside the particular department, focusing on some tiny aspect of the big picture of their field. But, as many people doing independent work have found, the more you analyze that small thing, the more it looks like something wonderful all on its own. Whether you are taking pictures of trash or analyzing one strain of bacteria for a whole year, looking closely can be a great adventure if you make it one.

Mark Twain once said, “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” Even though the rigorous Princeton schedule doesn’t always give us the flexibity we might want, that’s no reason to feel confined. If you play classical piano, you can learn some jazz. If you debate, you might want to try out for a play. Let your own little boat be led by the wind, and you might be surprised what’s just on the other side of the lake.

Sophia LeMaire is a mechanical engineering major from Longmeadow, Mass. She can be reached at slemaire@princeton.edu.