The bubble within the Bubble

This is, in ways, similar to our experience with Princeton itself. To avoid probing questions about ISC or Princeton, I tell people I’m taking “physics,” at “a school in New Jersey.” We even call Icahn’s signature sculpture “the bubble,” in a fitting appropriation of the Orange Bubble metaphor. The stares we get from students passing by the atrium during our late-night problem set sessions mirror the glances I get from tourists and townspeople alike on campus — both carry the same expression of foreignness, incomprehension and separation. We in Integrated eat together and socialize together; over the summer, nearly half the class will even live together, having taken research positions, mostly within Icahn. We are, then, a bubble within the Bubble — and the similarities run more than skin-deep.

Early in the year, one of my Integrated Science classmates attended a mental health forum — one of September’s many fairs, offering food and clothing in exchange for attention. She filled out a brief questionnaire, detailing her declining sleep habits, difficult coursework and compressed social life. The woman she handed it to immediately started worrying whether my classmate was depressive, until she noted that she was in ISC. The concerned mood immediately evaporated, the woman smiled and said, “Oh, well, you’re just fine then!” and moved on.

We laughed about it afterward, sitting in the sculpture in Icahn atrium, but it hit home because we’ve all worried about it. We joke about how nice it would be if Icahn had cots available for us to stay the night, but the laughter contains some measure of bitterness — too many of us have watched the rising sun light up Poe Field through the atrium windows.

I’ve noticed we speak of Princeton to friends and relatives at home the same way ISCers speak of Integrated to friends on the outside. No matter how overwhelmed I feel, the same bubbly exclamations burst forth: “Ohmigod, the classes are awesome and the people are awesome and the architecture is incredible, and I love every minute of it!”

Even when the question of difficulty is explicitly raised, it is dismissed with a wave of the hand. “It’s not for everyone, and it swallows up my free time, but it’s worth it!” We complain that our lives are hell, and then, come Preview weekend, do everything we can to get prefrosh to take the path we took.

Why do we complain so much within our communities, then praise them so exuberantly to the outside world?

Unfortunately, part of it is the infamous duck effect — when talking to outsiders, we take on the appearance of floating effortlessly on the water, while paddling desperately beneath the surface. This pressure to perform effortlessly, even though everyone else is struggling, is insidious and should not be discounted. But often complaints within a group aren’t acknowledgement of struggling so much as a sort of masochistic-one-upmanship. How many times have you had the conversation: “Oh, your weekend sounds busy — but listen to what I have to do!”?

I think the more important reason, though, is that within our communities, we already take the blessings we have for granted. When complaining within Icahn, within FitzRandolph Gate, we’re among those whose struggles we share, who are less likely to see frustrated venting as humble bragging. Outside, complaining about Princeton would seem ungrateful, absurd and perhaps even outright snobby. Every time I vent to my Integrated classmates, the blow is deadened by the reasons — unspoken but ever-present — that we’re here in the first place. These reasons are, again, strikingly similar to the reason we’re at Princeton: world-class education, opportunities to apply it outside the classroom in exciting ways, interaction with extremely gifted peers and professors.

I try not to lose sight of these perks. Every time I ask myself despairingly “why am I doing this to myself,” I have an answer ready. It’s the same response I give my non-ISC friends, family over break and prefrosh during Preview: “It’s a daunting challenge, but…”

Bennett McIntosh is a freshman from Littleton, Colo. He can be reached at bam2@princeton.edu.