My elementary school history classes stuck mostly to the facts. George Washington was the first president.
In Isabella Gomes?s Feb. 22 column, ?Ready, Set, Draw,? she explains what she understands the point of her college education to be, halfway through her freshman year: ?learning to identify ourselves through our associations with others ... Never as much as we do now, we have come to understand that the people we identify with essentially form our identity.? This makes me really, deeply sad.
Talking to a freshman friend before I headed off to Bicker, he lifted his coffee in salute as if I were a soldier entering battle and encouraged me to be myself ? only wittier, smarter and more fun.He was joking, but his point was spot-on: Whether in classes or around the dinner table, I often feel as though I need to be a shinier version of myself in order to compete with my peers.
When New York Times columnist David Brooks accused Princetonians of being “organization kids,” he claimed that our easy acceptance of authority and eagerness to please had fostered a passive environment in which the greater community protested more on behalf of campus issues than the students themselves.
Several months ago, I stumbled upon an insightful column in the Yale Daily News, ?Leadership without virtue,? by Bijan Aboutorabi.
There are few people who are lucky enough to write for The New York Times, let alone get paid to test-drive Tesla?s new Model S around the East Coast and write about it.
Last week, Dave Kurz wrote about finding truths, ?absolute and bound up with goodness,? and using them to decide how to live our lives.
Not too long ago, one of my closest friends at Princeton was going through an emotionally rough time.
Divestment is once again in the news ? and not just at Princeton. Recent proposals by Princeton faculty and students to have the University sell its investments in gun companies and major fossil-fuel producers mirror similar efforts across the country.
The University of Pennsylvania College Republicans recently promoted an Ivy League-wide effort to advocate support for a statement in favor of gay marriage.
During a press briefing in 2002, Donald Rumsfeld (Class of 1954 ? a fact I would assume is not often brought up during Orange Key tours) spoke more like a professor of epistemology than a secretary of defense when he ruminated on the subject of ?unknown unknowns.? According to Rumsfeld, there are ?known knowns,? things we know we know, and ?known unknowns,? things we know we don?t know, but also ?unknown unknowns,? things we don?t know we don?t know.
This semester, a large Princeton course will integrate online lectures for the first time. Students in COS 226: Algorithms and Data Structures will experience some of their lectures through Coursera, the platform through which the University offers several free online courses.
It seems especially relevant, at the close of Black History Month, to return to the question ?Why do race studies matter??In some ways, this is a legitimate question.
According to the Academic Life Total Assessment Survey, students cite the Office of the Registrar/SCORE course evaluations as one of their most important resources when making course choices.
One of the greatest fears for incoming freshmen centers on the roommate assignments we received months before setting foot on Princeton?s campus.
No matter how many times I visit Princeton, as I step off the Dinky I?m always struck by the dazzling, vertiginous onslaught of orange and black draped around everyone?s necks and seemingly sewn into everyone?s hearts.
Truth is, I think, inherently linked to good: Everything that is good stems from institutions, ideas or innovations rooted in truth.
This Monday afternoon, joined by a handful of my fellow Terrans, I enjoyed the hilarity that was an offering titled ?The Penis Parables: A Response to ?The Vagina Monologues.? ? Generally inoffensive and completely hysterical, the Penis Parables detailed the discomforts of premature ejaculation and boxer-brief underwear.However, at the risk of sounding like a male apologist, I could not help but wonder what a true Penis Parables at Princeton would look like.
My first encounter with Princeton?s American Studies program came while I was standing outside a classroom in Frist one afternoon last week, waiting for the previous class to end.
At the end of January, a Princeton resident named David Keddie submitted a letter to the editor of Planet Princeton titled ?Princeton Needs More Apartment Buildings.? Planet Princeton operates somewhere between a newsletter and a blog and describes itself as the ?central place on the Internet where [Princeton residents] can share news, events and community concerns.? Keddie?s letter received 88 ?likes? and 82 comments on Facebook, which, according to my browsing through other such letters to the editor, is about four times the average amount in either category.The letter made a simple claim: Keddie believes there is an unmet demand for increased housing in the Princeton Borough area.
