My first year at Princeton has officially concluded. In celebration and appreciation of such an exciting year, I have decided to share a few frosh memories that stick out extra vividly.
During Orientation in August, I participated in Outdoor Action, or OA, one of three small-group experiences for incoming freshmen, and let me just say that our small group definitely had an experience! Throughout our trip, the girls slept luxuriously in an actual tent, while we guys slept like sardines on a long tarp — our roof consisted of two more long tarps that overlapped one another as they lay draped over a rope tied between two trees. Well, when an intense thunderstorm greeted us one night, I will let you guess how that went…. I was one of the fortunate guys whose sleeping bag was located under the overlapping part of the two tarps covering us; once the bottom of the thunderstorm fell out, I kind of got a little wet. I just remember lying there, with my sleeping bag gradually getting damper and damper and rolls of thunder echoing throughout the campsite, and thinking, "What is happening?! A few months ago, I didn’t even know where I was going to college, and here I am now lying in a soaking wet sleeping bag under some tarps with guys from all over the world at a random campsite in Pennsylvania for a Princeton University orientation event.” The storm eventually got so rough that our entire group, girls included, had to take refuge in the nearby men’s bathroom. In the end, we survived the night. While hardly any of us slept well or had a sleeping bag that was not drenched, we all felt like we had experienced something special. We were all undoubtedly sleep-deprived and soaked, but the eleven of us will always have the memories from that crazy night!
Shortly after Orientation, my very first semester at Princeton commenced, which was filled with just as many memorable experiences as OA, especially in terms of the months of October and November. In early October, I got food poisoning. Let me be the first to tell you that getting sick in college is a different ball game. In college, if you live far away from family, like me, you cannot go home and lie down on a couch like Cleopatra as your family pampers you with medicine and good food; if you need medicine or food, you have to go out and get it yourself — or you can always reach out to friends. At the end of the day, you have to learn to care for and rely on yourself, even when you do not feel 100%. Luckily, thanks to great friends and much rest, I recovered and was able to get back in the swing of things. About a month after my food-poisoning attack, at the onset of November, I witnessed a presidential election at Princeton. On election night, all the political aesthetics of Whig-Clio and chatter around campus made me feel like history was unfolding right before me. Outside of Whig Hall, there were spotlights that seemed to shoot endlessly into the November night sky and giant letters that spelled, “VOTE.” I am not super interested in politics, but the energy of that night was so palpable and contagious. From a case of food poisoning to a presidential election, my first semester was certainly one to remember.
In the spring semester, one special event that sticks out is visiting Philadelphia for the first time with my family. For spring break, instead of flying home, my whole family actually drove up to Princeton to pick me up. So, on our way back to South Carolina, we decided to spend a night in Philly and sightsee around the city a little bit. We visited the University of Pennsylvania, saw the Liberty Bell, and ran the Rocky steps that lead up to the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Philadelphia is gorgeous and so historic! We loved learning more about the city and some of its main attractions. Being so close to Philly, New York, and plenty of other cities is a huge plus of Princeton. If you ever want to get off campus for a little bit or simply explore an interesting place with friends and family, there are definitely various places within reach.
My first year of college was unforgettable. The memories chronicled in this blog are only a handful of countless I have made from this past year. I hope they will allow you to see that college is not a place where you just try to choose a career path and take classes for four years; rather, college is a place where memories are made every day, many of which will last a lifetime.