The last time I was in Haiti was in August 2019, before I moved to Germany to attend boarding school. Since then, either the health situation in the world or the socio-political situation in Haiti has prevented me from visiting my native land. This winter break was no exception. Following the surge of the Omicron variant around the world, which came in addition to the worrying political instability plaguing my country, I had to make the difficult decision to indefinitely postpone my trip to Haiti. After moping for a few days and complaining to my family, I had to take on the arduous but necessary mission of figuring out how I was going to spend my winter vacation in the United States.

One thing was sure, I was going to find someone, somewhere, to host me for the duration of the vacation. For one, Haitians are everywhere! For two, I know people… I think? Anyway, I was going to be fine! Asking family and friends to host me remained the last option on my list. After all, no one wants to be a visitor who abuses their host's hospitality. Four weeks is a lot of hellos, good nights, have you eaten already, when are you going back to Princeton again? Four weeks is a long time under the care of barely known strangers or distant relatives. For the most part, no one will tell you it's time to leave, but there is always an underlying discomfort that intensifies over time. Even when the host's hospitality doesn't seem to waver, after some time, one always ends up feeling uncomfortable. Out of place. Like a burden.

Fortunately, I did not have to burn my brain cells overthinking or interpreting the over-enthusiastic hellos or the not-genuine-enough smiles from any host. Sometime after Thanksgiving, Professor Hakim of the SIFP Office (Scholars Institute Fellows Program) shared an email from Dean Dolan regarding a request for continuous accommodation over the winter break. Essentially, students who could not return home during the holidays had the option of applying for continuous housing in order to be allowed on campus over the break. That was a breakthrough in my mission!

A few days after submitting a request in which I explained my situation, I received a confirmation from Princeton: I had qualified for continuous housing. Yay! After the immediate relief wore off, I felt bittersweet. I was grateful that I had a place to stay where I would be looked after. The testing program would continue throughout the break and food would be provided to me. Yet, despite having everything I needed to make it through, I was also very aware of the needs of the heart. The end of the year is a time most people spend with family and friends; I was staying on my college campus. I did not know how I would feel on Christmas Eve. Alone in my room. Or on New Year's Eve. Part of me was incredibly anxious.

The truth is, I really enjoyed my time on campus over the break. Don't get me wrong, there were some difficult times when I thought about where I could have been and what I could have been doing. However, I was constantly reminded that I had what I needed. I used the time away from distractions to reflect on my semester and my year in general. I realized that caught in the frenetic rhythm of my first semester, I did not spend enough time thinking about how I was doing, my goals or about the ways in which I was reconnecting with friends and family from back home. This downtime was incredibly helpful and rejuvenating. 

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I also explored the campus and the surrounding areas on my bike. I spent time with the many other international students (and a few domestic students) who were also staying on campus. We had a lot to think about, a lot to share and a lot to laugh about. On January 7th, we had our first snow! The campus was magnificent, shining beneath this thick immaculate white sheet which, when it fell upon the old buildings and the remaining greenery created a magnificent contrast. I fell asleep that day with the windows open, lulled by the sight of the flakes that landed majestically on the grass in the Forbes backyard, on the other side of my room. The next day, the intensified sunlight reflected on the snow woke me up. I got ready right away for a full tour of campus, as I did on my first day at Princeton back in July 2021. Indeed, it was as if I was discovering the campus for the first time. 

After the first snowfall, the campus slowly came back to life. Student-athletes, staff and faculty eased back to work. I started feeling the excitement about the Wintersessions I had signed up for and the winter internship I had secured through Princeton. I will probably write a blog post about them: Designing a Photo Exhibit (documenting the experience of black students attending the first-ever residential summer program at Princeton in 1964) and a discussion on forced migration. I am also very excited for the Spring semester!

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P.S.: The Spiderman reference in the title was involuntary!

My Princeton dorm can be identified by my building, floor and room number, but it's not a mailing address to which the postal service can deliver. How do you receive mail and packages in the Orange Bubble? The answer is Frist Campus Center, the hub for student life located in the middle of campus. Every student has a mailing address at Frist that remains the same throughout your time here, and you can ship to that address just as you would ship to your home.

When a letter or package arrives for you at Frist, you receive an auto-generated email notification. Somehow the notification that something is waiting for your pickup is always incredibly exciting, even when you know it's just a pair of socks you ordered.

Letters can be picked up at the mail desk during normal business hours, and packages can be picked up anytime from the package kiosks. Using the package kiosks feels a little bit magical, in my opinion. You approach a wall of package cells with a touchscreen in the middle, but you don't know which cell contains your package. When you scan your Tigercard at the touchscreen, one of the cells automatically pops open for you to take out your package. This grand reveal truly does add pomp and circumstance to the moment, even for the reception of something as mundane as that pair of socks.

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There are also specialized email notifications for specific deliveries, like oversized packages (for which you have to go to the oversized mailroom) or perishable items. My parents sent me flowers for my birthday, and I received 3 emails in the course of about 20 minutes asking me to immediately come and fetch my perishable delivery from Frist. Never fear that you will not be made aware when you have a perishable delivery waiting for you, but do fear that your inbox will be flooded.

As for shipping out of the Bubble, there are numerous mailboxes and UPS drop boxes located around campus (the mailbox closest to my dorm is about a 5-minute walk). The U.S. Post Office is located on Nassau Street just a few minutes past the E-quad, and there's a UPS store near there as well. In summary, the walls of the Orange Bubble are quite permeable for sending and receiving whatever you need.

The last time I wrote a blog post about The Daily Princetonian, I had just become an Associate News Editor. Now, almost two years later, I am done being an editor after serving two terms. Editing for the ‘Prince’, as we commonly call it, has been my favorite part of Princeton by far.

Every week, I spent two nights “on shift”. This means I would spend several hours in our wonderful newsroom at 48 University Place editing the news articles that were due that night. I made suggestions about structure and edited for word choice and clarity. I loved when writers came into the newsroom to work with me on their article. The newsroom had a real camaraderie each night as it filled up with editors and writers as they made contributions to their respective sections. It helped that the newsroom was always well-stocked with snacks, from every type of chip you can imagine to fresh waffles made on the newsroom wafflemaker. The newsroom really feels like home to me now.

Even on days I wasn’t on shift, I still had various other responsibilities for the Prince. For example, I was the assigned editor for a few articles each week. I would check in with the writers for those articles and answer any questions they had. I helped them think of people to contact and develop questions for their sources. Interacting with our writers one-on-one was a truly rewarding experience because I felt like I could help them improve their reporting skills, and I learned from them as well. 

While most of my contributions to the Prince were within the news section, I also attended full masthead meetings, where I contributed to discussions about the Prince as a whole. I served on various committees, like our accessibility working group, which focused on making sure that students with disabilities could access all of our reporting, and the speaker series team, which planned regular Zoom events featuring established reporters. I also worked on efforts to make the Prince more diverse and welcoming to writers of all backgrounds as a member of the Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging Board. I love that the Prince is a place that values the opinions of all staff members, from people who just joined the organization to the most senior editors.

Even though I’m no longer an editor, I’ll continue to attend news meetings and social events this spring because of how much I care about the amazing Prince community. I’ll have more time to write news articles, and that’s why I joined the Prince in the first place. I have grown immensely by being a news writer and editor and I’m so incredibly grateful for this experience.

It’s crazy to me that I graduate this year - and there’s still so much I want to do at Princeton. Here’s a bucket list of everything I have to do before I leave (sob).

Go to the top of Cleveland Tower. The grad school tower is a Princeton landmark, and it’s right across the golf course from Forbes College, where I live. In fact, in sophomore year I’d see it every morning from my window when I woke up. But most people don’t seem to realize that you can actually visit the top of the tower and take in crazy views of campus

Explore Firestone’s extensive collection. I recently discovered rows of graphic novels and comics from my childhood deep in its lower levels, and spent an afternoon flipping through pages rather than studying for my exams. Firestone Library may be a great place for studying and research, but there’s so much more - odds are, they’ve got stuff on anything you’d be interested in reading. And the library itself is so sprawling that there are so many out-of-the-way nooks and crannies. 

Explore all the buildings on campus. Firestone is just the start of it - there are so many buildings on Princeton’s campus that I’ve definitely not fully explored. There are dinosaur skulls and hidden cafes and sixth-floor rooms with floor-to-ceiling windows where you can watch the sun set over campus. Apparently, there are tunnels connecting some of the science buildings…

See a Triangle Show one more time. Every year, I’ve made sure to watch the student-led theater production put on by The Princeton Triangle Club. My sophomore fall, I was actually off campus during opening weekend, and Ubered specifically back to campus just to catch the show. It’s a tradition. Last time I heard “Old Folks Home,” I practically cried. 

Eat at all the dining halls again. Each residential college has a dining hall, and during our first and second years, everyone pretty much eats in one or the other - whether it’s which is closest after class, or which has the best looking menu, or which is closest to the lazy friend you’re meeting for dinner. As an upperclassmen, however, most people begin to eat in their eating clubs, co-ops, or independent plans. But everyone still gets two meal swipes per week at the dining halls of old - I’ll make sure to give each of them a go around for old times’ sake.

There's a lot I'll be doing for old times' sake this one last spring - but I think as always, Princeton will throw new and unexpected experiences my way. The bucket list will probably be a lot bigger - and more checked off - in just a few months. As they say in "Old Folks Home," Princeton is truly first rate.

While preparing for university applications and alumni interviews, I wanted to find out more about what the schools I applied to were really like. Now that I have attended Princeton for a semester, I hope I can share with you some of the things you may want to look out for in your research as well as some resources you can use to learn about student life.

Obviously, your first stop should be either the University website or the admission website.

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Here, you can browse the tabs that catch your attention and allow interesting links to lead you on a trail. For example, I noted the concentrations (majors) and certificates (minors) that interested me, perused the research interests of professors in the molecular biology department and checked out the social media pages of extracurricular activities and student groups such as Triple 8 Dance Company (where you can now find an introduction of me!) and Manna Christian Fellowship. At the time, I got so excited that I noted down 25 activities I would be interested in participating in. As a vegan, I also looked for more information on the dining halls and found this guide written by the Greening Dining Club to be a wealth of information. We also have a student blog on being a vegan at Princeton.

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To learn more about the astounding breadth of past, current, and new classes, head to the Office of the Registrar. It was here that I first found MOL460: Diseases in Children: Causes, Costs, and Choices in January 2020, and I still can’t wait for the opportunity to take this class in the future.

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Another useful resource is what you’ve already found: the admissions blog! The blogs provided me with stories that put color and faces to the information on the website. There are also 13 current students who are more than happy to answer any questions you may have, whether you are a prospective student, an anxious or curious applicant, or a deferred or admitted student. Please don’t be afraid to reach out by email! I wish I did when I was in your shoes, even if just to hear more about what college life is like.

Princeton also has an incredible student-run daily newspaper, the Daily Princetonian, also referred to as the ‘Prince’, where you can get an inside scoop on what is happening in the Princeton community. I turn to the ‘Prince’ for University news, opinions on current topics, and funny cartoons. In true New York Times-style, the ‘Prince’ also features a crossword, podcasts, photos, and videos.

For some more insider information, you can head to YouTube to see the beautiful buildings, numerous libraries, and various styles of dorms, as well as hear more about classes and what students do for fun. The University also makes a Year in Review - this year’s features the bonfire we had in celebration of the football team beating both Yale and Harvard - and provides more information on our Nobel Prize winners.

Don’t hesitate to chat with friends, family, and your high school counselor about your college plans - you might be surprised to find they have a friend who attended Princeton and would be more than happy to speak with you about their experience. I also learned a lot from asking my alumna interviewer about her time here.

Finally, you can take advantage of social networks such as LinkedIn and Facebook to find people in your area affiliated with the University or message someone who studied in a field that interests you.

Happy researching!

I’d just gotten home for the holidays this year when the Instagram posts started flooding in from my fellow Class of 22er’s - “Semester 7/8 done! One to go!” etc etc. Which of course wasn’t the first time this had crossed my mind. I’ve had a few late nights this semester thinking back to how it all began, reliving memories of the past three years, and wondering how on earth it could have all happened so quickly. I’m not kidding anyone, least of all myself. I knew from day one that these four years would move by fast.

People like to say at Princeton that the days are long, but the weeks are short. Every day, between the random encounters, the meetups for meals and studying, the trekking around campus from McCosh Hall to Firestone Library to Dillon Gym to Frist for Late Meal; between the plans you make for clubs and classes, and the hours after dinner you didn’t intend to spend playing pool or hanging out in the dining hall - every day you go to bed and think, how could I possibly have done all that in just one day?

Every day happens like that, and then you wake up and - wait a moment - that dinner in Whitman was a week ago? That dance performance was two? It’s been a month since that fall break trip and your fifteen page paper is due in like a week?

Wait a moment - it’s been three years already?

I tried to steel myself very early my first year for these thoughts. I knew the time would go by fast. But knowing only does so much. And I think what has helped me more than anything is trying as hard as I can to stay rooted in the present. To enjoy everything I have today, and to allow that to be all that matters. And when I sit down to think about all the experiences I’ve had, big and small, over the past week, or month, or year, I feel full, if that makes sense. 

I’m heading into my last semester. A couple weeks ago I woke up early one morning to do my last round of course selections for the upcoming semester. And it’s hard not to start thinking of things as the “last.” As a Residential College Adviser, I look at my first-year advisees and can’t help feeling a touch of melancholy at just how much time they have left. 

If any of you are looking at Princeton - heck, if any early action admits are reading this blog - I’m wishing you all the best. These years in college aren’t a cake walk, and sometimes things won’t seem the greatest. But look for and cherish the good moments. They go by fast.

Truthfully, when I came to Princeton, I was not expecting to meet people who looked like me. I expected to be the outsider, other, visually and actually different from the rest. At my high school, that was all I knew. I was the only hijab-wearing Muslim out of over 800 students, and often the only Black person or girl in my advanced math and science courses. 

At my high school, I took the initiative to co-found the Muslim Students Association, or MSA for short. Our first couple years were a struggle to stabilize the group. The MSA never had more than four or five students during any given year. My experience of founding my school’s MSA opened my eyes to the reality of being Muslim at a predominately white institution: that experience is often isolating. But it also taught me the strength provided by community. 

Coming to Princeton, though, was a different story. Yes, I met people from all over the world, from Germany to Canada, and from Kenya to China, but I also met people just like me. I met people from California, my home state, and people from the Yoruba tribe, my tribe. Most meaningfully, I met people from my faith, Islam. A. WHOLE. GROUP. OF. THEM.

Let me set the scene for you: around noon, I walked into the gorgeous Murray-Dodge Hall and was greeted by Muslim peers. There was not just one type of “Muslim.” There were hijab-wearing Muslims and non-hijab-wearing ones, there were Muslims from a wide variety of American states and various countries across the world. THERE WERE PEOPLE MY AGE! STUDENTS! Students that I could talk to about the Quran, or about being a neuroscience concentrator, about hadith or about Hoagie Haven.

This was huge for me, considering I had an inconsistent Muslim community back home that mainly consisted of older women and their young children. Performing Jummah salat, an Islamic congregational prayer held every Friday, had become an action I did on autopilot, without really connecting with those around me. Going to Jummah for the first time at Princeton, though, thoroughly altered my notion of what Muslim representation can look like on an academic campus: being Muslim at a predominately white institution did not have to feel isolating, in fact, it could feel quite enriching and enjoyable.

Though Princeton's MSA has given me a community of people who I can relate to on a religious level, I would be remiss if I did not address the concept of homogeneity. While I do not think that living and staying solely in a community that looks entirely like you is a rewarding way to go through life, I think that there is much that can be gained from finding a small group of people with shared identities inside of a larger community that is diverse. These sort of small groups provide room for relatability without the echo chambers common in complete homogeneity. They provide a respite from day-to-day experiences without becoming a place that criticizes you for differences. 

Princeton’s MSA has shown me that same strength I first discovered, multiplied. Though it is still growing and expanding, the Princeton MSA has further exemplified how tightly a community can come together, especially after sorrowful events like the passing of Imam Sohaib.  I am looking forward to continuing my experience of Religious Life at Princeton, and I encourage you to explore the various religious groups on campus.

When I initially began to reflect on my first semester here at Princeton, I could only see it as a zero-sum game, wherein Princeton bested me time and time again, despite my best efforts to maintain good grades, make friends and get enough sleep. But the inherent nature of reflection is not zero-sum, in fact, it is only through reflection that I’ve arrived at the person I am today, grasping at and combining all of the lessons I’ve learned throughout the years. Now that finals season has begun to wind down and the temperature has dropped suspiciously low, I am here to share with you three lessons I’ve learned from my first semester at Princeton!

Resilience Over Perfection

This has been a big one for me. As what you would call a “high achiever” (read: perfectionist) in high school, I expected that if I just sat down and studied, I’d get an ‘A’ in all or most of my classes. I quickly realized that that is not how academics works here at Princeton! Here, someone can study for hours and hours and still feel unsure walking into an exam. I do not say this to scare you, oh young one, but to prepare you. After taking my first semester of classes—an intro neuroscience class, an intro computer science class, a painting class and my first-year writing seminar—I have learned to value my own resilience over any unachievable notion of perfection. It is only from trying different study techniques and taking advantage of different class resources such as office hours that I’ve begun to figure out what I need to thrive academically. If I don’t get the grade I want, that just means I need to try something new next time!

The Spontaneous Yes is Rarely a Bad Choice

I know I’m going out on a limb here, telling you that your fingers do not have to be perpetually glued to a pencil or computer, but alas it is true! There are so many INCREDIBLE experiences I’ve had here at Princeton, all because I was willing to say “yes”! From learning how to ice skate at UPenn’s ice rink to performing in a Halloween parade, there are tons of opportunities (most of them free) for students to try new things, meet new people and have fun. 

Rest is Powerful

Read that one more time. Though it is easy to fall into a habit of working all the time and always being “busy,” I am slowly leaning into the power of saying no and taking some time for myself. Currently, my favorite self-care activities are napping, journaling and crocheting. I know I just told you to say “yes!” to more things, so this next lesson seems counterintuitive, but it’s actually not. My intentional “no’s” gave me the space to recharge and engage in self-care, so that when I did say “yes!” I was able to fully engage with whatever new experience I was having.  Saying yes to everything is not sustainable, and saying no to everything is a waste of all the cool opportunities Princeton has to offer; developing a good balance of yes’s and no’s is what has allowed me to take advantage of cool opportunities while staying on top of academics and relationship building. It is the key to avoiding burnout.

I hope you’ve enjoyed my reflections on my first semester at Princeton. What has this past semester been like for you?

I studied remotely for my first year, so my sophomore fall semester was my first time living on campus. One of the best parts of being in person is being able to partake in Princeton's numerous traditions that aim to build community in the Orange Bubble, so here are seven of my favorites that I've had the chance to experience:

1. Pre-Rade

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The Pre-rade is a parade in which an incoming class is officially welcomed to Princeton by running through Fitzrandolph gates. Alumni, upperclassmen and the student band cheer for you as you sprint through the black iron gates in front of Nassau Hall. The Class of 2024 didn't have a Pre-rade last year due to the pandemic, so ours was held this year just before the Class of 2025 Pre-rade. Students never walk through Fitzrandolph gates again until commencement, because legend has it you won't graduate in four years if you do! I don't know if I believe this, but I'm not going to be the one to find out.

2. Chalkboards

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I have yet to see a single dry-erase whiteboard on the Princeton campus. Instead, every classroom or office I've seen has a traditional black chalkboard. I'm not entirely sure what the logic is behind this. You're forced to write more slowly on a chalkboard, I've found, so maybe this forces professors to slow down when teaching and helps students pinpoint mistakes in their reasoning when working through equations. Whatever the purpose, writing on a chalkboard feels old-fashioned and classic in a way that reminds me of Einstein working at Princeton (even when I'm only writing out a homework problem instead of refining the theories of quantum physics).

3. Forbes Garden and Sunday Brunch

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My residential college, Forbes, is home to both the Princeton Garden Project, where student garden managers organize workdays where students can help weed and harvest, and to their famous weekly Sunday brunch, complete with a chocolate fountain. I enjoyed checking out the garden this semester and seeing the vegetables and fruits they were growing, and the Sunday brunch never failed to impress. 

4. Bonfire

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When the Princeton football team defeats both Harvard and Yale in the same season, the tradition is to host a celebratory bonfire on Cannon Green. Each class year had a specified time throughout the day when they could place crates on the structure to be burned, and in the evening students cheered as the Yale and Harvard-decorated structure went up in flames.

5. Outdoor Action

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Outdoor Action is best-known for organizing the pre-orientation camping trip for first years, but they also offer hikes and other sporting activities to all students throughout the year. On "OA Day" Saturday this semester, I decided to join a hike at the Mountain Lakes Nature Preserve (about a mile off campus). The scenery was lovely and I was able to meet some new people.

6. Newspapers

The Daily Princetonian is always available online, but I really enjoy reading a copy of the physical newspaper. Having a print copy allows me to see stories that wouldn't otherwise catch my eye online, and it's nice to get a break from the screen. Each Friday afternoon copies of the Daily Princetonian and the Nassau Weekly, the literary magazine, are distributed to the residential colleges. I always look forward to picking up my copies and catching up with news and discussion of the Orange Bubble at the end of the week.

7. Applause after the final lecture

At the conclusion of the final lecture on the last day of classes, the students erupt into a hearty round of applause in gratitude for all the knowledge the professor has imparted throughout the semester. This occurred in a way on Zoom last year in the form of "thank you!" messages and "clapping hands" emojis flooding the chat, but it was so much more meaningful in person.

These were the Princeton traditions I got to experience this fall, and I'm looking forward to what sophomore spring will bring!

The Princeton academic experience offers a liberal arts education to each student, even those not majoring in the humanities or social sciences. Kevin has a lovely post about what a liberal arts education means to him as an engineer. Like Kevin, I chose Princeton in part because I hoped to gain the technical knowledge needed for my engineering career as well as broaden my perspective on major life themes. I wanted to be trained in the knowledge and skills for environmental research, yet I was also seeking a liberal arts education that would guide my decision-making and problem-solving throughout life. 

Engineering students at Princeton take a writing seminar in their freshman year, and they take a minimum of 7 additional humanities or social science courses before graduation. This averages to one humanities or social science course each semester for engineering students. There is plenty of room for selection with these courses, which can span topics from Happiness and Being Human in Catholic Thought (a philosophy freshman seminar I took last fall) to Mother Tongues (a linguistics freshman seminar I took last spring) to Advanced French (a language class I took last spring).

This fall, I decided to enroll in a visual arts course called Fabric Logics: Textiles as Sculpture. The major units in the course are string art, sewing and weaving. The structure and assignments of the course are very different from what I'm used to: the class meets only once a week, but for a 4-hour class, and instead of being assigned papers or problem sets, I create artworks using the techniques we learn in class. For the sewing unit, our sample project assignment was to create a fruit or a vegetable to practice machine and hand sewing. Please enjoy this image of the banana I made:

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Being able to explore courses in the humanities and social sciences each semester allows me to pursue other interests and learn techniques and ideas that could one day influence my engineering career. For instance, the weaving technique in Fabric Logics could be similar to a lab procedure I'll need one day, or my studies in French culture could influence the type of environmental solutions I propose for a francophone city. Princeton's liberal arts education prepares me to be a creative and dynamic problem-solver, which I hope will allow me to have the greatest positive impact I can have in the world.