Last Saturday was Texas Independence Day, and seeing the Princeton Texans Club table set up in Frist, with our giant Lone Star flag and representatives decked out in Stetson hats and cowboy boots, reminded me once again of how much pride I have in my home state.
Princeton?s advising system is weak. For whatever reason, it doesn?t seem to be able to institutionally provide good advising in terms of academic, career planning or independent work.
I was an idealist, OK? Seduced by the romantic freedom college offered, I made a choice that now seems absurd.
In the past couple of weeks, columnists Rich Daker and Susannah Sharpless have both presented us, in their own ways, a vision of what a college education ? a Princeton education in particular ? is all about.
Change is tough. Sociologist Max Weber famously remarked that ?politics is the strong and slow boring of hard boards.? Progress, in other words, does not come easily: One must fight tooth and nail.
Last week the ?Prince? reported a groundswell, or at least a tremor, of support for a plan to make the Wednesday before Thanksgiving a de jure vacation day ? currently, it is merely a de facto day off.
It is with some hesitation that we offer this criticism of Mental Health Week. We have been deeply moved by the narratives posted online ? indeed, they have inspired our own reflections ? and we hope that our thoughts are not read as an attack on a necessary call for awareness.
It?s the end of March, and this year, as usual, professors are sleepless in New Jersey. Every morning for the last couple of weeks, I have risen from my comfortable bed at an even more ungodly hour than usual, padded to the kitchen in search of caffeine, and then plunked myself in front of the computer to see what my seniors have sent me.Most days, the catch is plentiful: one or more long chapters, packed with material, appear, attached to an email sent between 4:00 and 6:00 AM.
Having just re-entered the world of academia after a year off from Princeton, I reckon now is a good time to think more deeply about what I’m getting from my formal education.
Nearly two decades ago, in 1995, members of the Asian-American Alumni Association for Princeton (A4P) staged a sit-in demonstration at Nassau Hall, protesting the lack of Asian-American and Latino studies programs at the University.
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.
