Doing more

Learning to dance like an “Urban Legend” and other opportunities have slipped out of my grasp as an undergraduate. Although it is too late for me to take advantage of them now, there are still many occasions for non-seniors to pursue these many avenues before their time at this University comes to an end — I encourage you all not to pass them up.

This is not to say that I haven’t enjoyed a wide range of things at Princeton or that I have not broadened my experiences and perspectives. Thanks to Princeton, I traveled outside of the country for the first time to do research on cinema in India. Interestingly enough, I used to believe that the most world culture I would ever witness would be the bullfights and festas in my hometown. Here, I have gotten to try my hand at theater and music and even had a unique role in helping to manage an eating club. But what I have missed are lectures by famous faculty members (as well as lectures for my classes), workshops by other dance groups, learning to debate and more.

I was never completely open to breaking out from my classified zones of association once they were set. I have had many friends at this University who have been similarly or more severely stuck in the same circles from freshman year on, whether they are social, extracurricular or academic. But it’s not a good feeling at the end of your senior year to know that there was always more that you could have done. It’s also a sad sight to witness someone else with so much potential in so many areas burrow themselves deeper in what’s familiar. Too many of my most talented peers, rather than exploring new fields, meeting new people and breaking the boundaries of communalism that tend to mark the Princeton campus, seek instead to solidify routine, cement social circles and relegate their identity to a monochromatic existence — at times, I too have found myself doing the very same. But the excitement of trying something new, and even better, being good at it, is not something to throw away at Princeton. We are all gifted at this University, and given the hard work each of us has put in to get here, we owe it to ourselves to maintain access to that excitement.

Given that many of us will need to enter the workforce in the coming years to pay off debts and establish some savings, the prospects for breaking out of our shells become slightly dimmer post-college. But here, there are endless opportunities to try something new, as attested by the overwhelming activities fairs. It’s easy to make the argument that adding one more activity to one’s schedule will be detrimental to academic work, but who’s to say that the only thing we came to college to do was schoolwork alone? After all, there is a reason that our admission office looks at extracurriculars and leadership experience in potential Princetonians. Not all of us will pursue academia, and the supplementary opportunities on campus may offer us a chance to explore the practical work that we’ll be taking on after graduation. I personally don’t think I would be as prepared or as excited for my work next year were it not for the practice in management and leadership in the extracurriculars I pursued in college — things that were all new to me when I first started here.

Ultimately, my biggest, yet most beneficial, error at times has been doing too much. It’s hard to regret those activities I had to branch out to enjoy at Princeton; it’s easy to regret not doing others. So for those of you who still have time, don’t lend yourself to easy regrets. Rather, give yourself over to great opportunity, and find a way to break the constraining mold that you had previously imagined for yourself. Like the two-dimensional figure being lifted off a page to see the real world, you have the unique chance to be liberated in your experiences at this University. Don’t waste it.

Joey Barnett is an anthropology major from Tulare, Calif. He can be reached at jbarnett@princeton.edu.