Columns

Students and Public Safety officials ought to be on the same page — the general welfare and comfort of the Princeton community is everyone’s objective. Unfortunately, this ethos has not been created and Public Safety’s mode of operation has sometimes turned hostile and even adversarial.

OPINION | 11/21/2011

Occupy the Streets: Princeton

Occupy the Streets: Princeton

Kinnari Shah

There is no promise that you will see any results from your protests with Occupy The Streets: Princeton. But if you expected anything different, that was your own fault.

OPINION | 11/15/2011

Great educations

Philip Mooney

We read the books, finish the problem sets, take the exams and then, having been “taught to think,” we are shoveled out into various careers, better equipped to contribute in any field. Or so we’re told.

OPINION | 11/14/2011

Let's knot

Rebecca Kreutter

As I stepped into the bathroom today I had a choice of four vacant showers. Waiting for me in shower one was a diverse array of hairy situations plastered on the wall.

OPINION | 11/14/2011

Unhelpful advice

Tehila Wenger

It seems that there are enough advisers per student to take care of every social and academic aspect of our lives. And yet, one semester into my college career, I have difficulty identifying ways my advisers have benefited me in concrete terms.

OPINION | 11/09/2011

Being happy at Princeton

Susannah Sharpless

What we don’t understand is that being happy isn’t like being a good student; emotions aren’t graded. If they were, the only way to get an A would be admitting to others and, more importantly, to ourselves when all we want to do is cry.

OPINION | 11/08/2011

Rethinking diversity: part III

Nathan Mathabane

This final installment sets a critical eye to the implementation of diversity programming on campus and the question of whether or not diversity can be compulsory.

OPINION | 10/25/2011

Change with passion

Aaron Applbaum

Using our talents, passions and personal interests to create social change is a primary legacy left by Kopp. We should all be incredibly proud of Teach for America, but we should also be proud of students such as Satok and Friedman and perhaps take inspiration and motivation from them to be creative and be our own vehicles for global change.

OPINION | 10/23/2011

Failing diversity

Philip Mooney

The University should continue to welcome students from every corner of the world, from every background and with every set of values. However, the administration should beware of shiny statistics and those ticked boxes. Numbers are one thing, reality another. Without real integration, “diversity” will result in a shallow pretense of unity.

OPINION | 10/19/2011

The dying breed of economics majors

Kinnari Shah

Having asked multiple humanities majors about their future career options, most casually respond that, if they do not end up with a job in their respective concentration, they can always go into finance as a backup. As a backup. Even science and engineering majors are ostensibly starting to consider finance as a secondary plan for their future careers and internships. This trend is perceptible among Princeton students.

OPINION | 10/19/2011

Activities fair: hold the crazy

Rebecca Kreutter

I walked into the fair with a plan. I knew which three groups I wanted to scope out, and I was ready to power through the crowd. Get in, get signed up, get out. Oh, how clueless.

OPINION | 10/17/2011

Confronting religion

Tehila Wenger

The policy of minimizing religious differences adopts the political correctness of indifference to skin color, nationality or sexual orientation and applies it to religion. You’re an Orthodox Jew? We won’t tell. And yet — would a French student appreciate being told that nobody will notice her accent? Why promise a gay teenager that nobody in his peer group knows of his orientation if he is open about his sexuality? These assurances imply that there is something embarrassing about the student’s identity. Moreover, religion, unlike the aforementioned categories, is a choice. If anything, the assumption upon encountering people with unusual religious practices should be that they are proud of their faith.

OPINION | 10/13/2011

Misplaced pride

Susannah Sharpless

Princeton’s attempts to make me a crazed devotee of Butler are off-putting and confusing in their intensity and irrationality. In doing so, Princeton is asking me to bypass one of the most important parts of college: the discovery of who I am and what I believe in.

OPINION | 10/12/2011

Don't call me Shirley

David Will

Bitterness about a loss in a tiff on social matters should not cloud out a reasonable appreciation of what Tilghman has contributed to the undergraduate experience.

OPINION | 10/10/2011

Drilling it in

Aaron Applbaum

Regulation might never be able to remove the risk from the dangerous enterprise of offshore drilling. The only path to true energy independence and greater national security is to decrease American energy consumption and to invest in homegrown renewable energy.

OPINION | 10/09/2011

The Princeton pressure

Brandon Davis

While some assume that we are supposed to come to campus with spectacular resumes, we must remember that truly extraordinary accomplishments almost always come well after college is over. The point is not to have accomplished great things before coming in, but to use Princeton’s resources to maximize our own potential after we graduate.

OPINION | 09/26/2011

A new interface for community health work

Guest Contributor

I learned the importance of teaching locals the tools to help themselves in the long term, but of also working with them to make sure what we wanted to implement was rooted in pragmatism and actual needs on the ground.

OPINION | 09/26/2011

The need for better dialogue

Monica Greco

All sides of an argument must be voiced to have a productive dialogue. Islam should be discussed and understood. Furthermore, concerns about religious fanaticism should be addressed.

OPINION | 09/26/2011

Discussing the death penalty

Aaron Applbaum

I am forced to conclude that the death penalty can be a tool that serves to bring justice and safety into the world, but it must be used with judiciousness and under extraordinarily intense scrutiny.

OPINION | 09/25/2011

My two Ferdinands

Joshua Katz

There are two Ferdinands in my life. The first, a nearly lifelong acquaintance, is a bull. Born 75 years ago, right before the start of the Spanish Civil War, “el toro feroz Ferdinando” was one of my favorite characters when I was a child.

OPINION | 09/25/2011

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