What I know now

This year, I spent part of freshman orientation week serving as an “academic peer adviser,” offering my two cents to a small group of students in the class of 2015 as they picked fall courses and contemplated larger plans. During our training, we were encouraged to think about what we wished we’d known as freshmen about academic and extracurricular life.

As it turns out, there’s quite a bit. Here, in no particular order and with no promise of being comprehensive, are some important answers to that question.

First, read the great books. They’re called “classic,” “timeless,” “great” and even “Great” (with a capital G) for a reason. They span the disciplines and the centuries, from Homer’s Odyssey to Locke’s Two Treatises on Government. Many of their themes are timeless, and plenty of others have found the wisdom they contain to be persuasive. Even when we disagree with them, challenging the great minds of history strengthens our own beliefs.

It is simply foolhardy to assume that the books written, read and studied by intelligent, well-educated people for centuries are suddenly worthless and that only things written after the 1960s can have any relevance for us today. As just one example, one of my courses in international relations began with Thucydides’ account of the Peloponnesian War. It’s easy to pooh-pooh a war fought over 2,400 years ago with decidedly un-modern technology. But when you really dig down, we can still learn quite a bit from Thucydides about topics like the balance of power or the nature of statesmanship in a democracy.

Second, refine what you believe and think, not just what you know. David Brooks recently wrote a thought-provoking column in the New York Times about a study that highlighted our generation’s inability to coherently discuss morality. He concluded that the problem stems from a rejection of received morality in favor of individual, relativistic definitions. Whether or not you agree with him about the causes and gravity of the situation, it’s a challenge to all of us to reject the widespread notion that there can be no right or wrong.

This doesn’t necessarily mean taking a course in philosophy or political theory (though I do recommend both). It could be on religion, on literature, on ethics in any number of fields or on ideas in a certain foreign culture. It might not even be a course; the right avenue might be a religious group on campus or conversations with friends. What you believe now might change in six months or six years, but it’s much easier to flourish here and in the future if you know what you believe.

Third, take courses “once removed” from your current interest. Already like politics? Take a course in history. Like English? Take a course on foreign literature. You might find a new major, or at least a new perspective. Aside from the handicap in the application processes for jobs and graduate schools after Princeton, the great shame of grade deflation is that it disincentivizes taking courses outside of your comfort zone. I won’t tell you to sabotage your GPA, but one of my favorite courses at Princeton was also the most severely grade deflated one. You also have four Pass/D/Fail options for a reason.

Fourth, sign up for lots of clubs this fall and then drop almost as many. The fact that the fall Activities Fair filled Dillon Gymnasium to capacity speaks to the range of student groups on campus. You suddenly have five options where you only had one or two in high school. It’s worth finding the right one, and you can’t do that without signing up and attending a few meetings or events. You’ll meet some, maybe even most, of your best friends through student groups.

On the other hand, you can’t do all of them. There will be a few that best capture your passions, but that doesn’t mean that you should do all fifteen of them. Woodrow Wilson called them “sideshows,” and he wasn’t entirely wrong. (As always, however, he also wasn’t entirely right, but that’s a column for another day.) It would be a shame to let a club prevent you from doing work for a class that otherwise might have been a valuable educational experience. It is also infinitely more satisfying to do things well than to do twice as many things superficially.

Oh, and do the reading. You’ll be surprised.

Finally, go to public lectures, panels, seminars and performances. No single university could possibly hire all of the interesting intellectuals, practitioners and performers in the world to teach, so public lectures and performances are the next best option. You’d be amazed how those lectures come in handy when you’re writing papers, junior papers and a thesis. And even if they’re outside your field of study, many of them, like Stephen Sondheim’s visit last week, are just plain interesting.

Take a foreign language. Study what you love, but figure out what you want to do with yourself at the end of four years and be prepared to do it. Fiercely guard your free time. Sleep. Eat. Exercise. Soak up every minute of this beautiful campus and the people here.