One unique feature of student life at Princeton is that nearly all students at the University live on campus for four years. Unlike many other schools, there’s not an ‘apartment scene’ here, and the residential aspect of campus means that the tight-knit, community feeling among undergraduates lasts for four years and beyond. 

Students are randomly assigned a dorm and roommates their first year, and in future years are allowed to pick their roommates and their rooms through a somewhat complex process known to students as ‘room draw.’ Each April, the University housing office publishes a list of room draw times, which are weighted by class year and randomized within them. In other words (although this is slightly oversimplified), the rising seniors go before the rising juniors, but within graduating classes it’s impossible to predict before the times come out how your time will compare to that of a classmate. Rising sophomores go through a similar process, but draw in a pool of only students in their residential college. 

Room draw  is a fun time on campus: students who know they’ll be drawing into a room together for the following school year go around campus and visit the current residents of rooms into which they’d like to draw, scoping out the terrain and asking questions about the benefits and drawbacks of that particular location. Using floor plans of the dorms provided by the University, students compile a list of their favorite rooms and cross their fingers that it’ll be available on their draw day. 

The range of dorm rooms at Princeton is pretty broad: there are rooms ranging from singles to an 11-man suite (known affectionately as “the Zoo”). Accordingly, there’s a room size, layout and location that works for pretty much everyone. A quick Google search of ‘Princeton dorm room’ reveals some of the many über-cool floor plans available to undergraduates. You feel a mix of stress and exhilaration as you watch the list of available rooms whittle further down until it’s your turn to draw. 

Friends of mine at other universities across the country always ask me if I mind living in the dorms for four years, as I watch them all move into apartments off-campus. Each time, I answer a resounding no: the rooms available to Princeton students are usually a lot cooler than the typical ‘first year dorm,’ and I can visit any of my friends at school by foot in less than ten minutes!

Whether your time is at the top of the senior list, or at the bottom of your class, there’s a room waiting on campus for you to call home. 

In a previous blog, I outlined how my academic concentration has changed during my four semesters at Princeton, transitioning from Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering to Politics. However, Princeton has also influenced my personal interests, including my appreciation for art.

Though I’ve always enjoyed making art and I’ve been drawing since childhood, that was the extent of my interest. I didn’t care much for art museums, art books or even talking about art. In particular, I didn’t understand what the big deal was about the Princeton University Art Museum. It amused me that all the visitors to campus seemed to want to visit the museum, possibly the place students visit the least. This began to change after I took Visual Arts (VIS204) “Painting I”  in the spring of my first year. Over the course of that semester, I visited the art museum several times for class assignments, gradually developing a greater appreciation for it.

The next semester, I resolved to go to the museum more often, with the ambitious goal of visiting once a week. This was a challenge; I still didn’t know very much about art and had a hard time appreciating all of the galleries. In late fall, however, Nature’s Nation went on exhibit (a collection of American art focused on the environment). I began to go to the museum quite often, hoping to examine everything in the exhibition before it moved to another location. While I had always enjoyed landscapes and more traditional depictions of nature, the exhibit also included styles of art I was less familiar with, which I began to grow more curious about.

When the exhibit left, I continued to visit the museum, exploring sections I had passed over before. I found a few friends who were also interested in the museum or volunteered there, and I began to visit it with them. Though I never expected it, going to the art museum is now a highlight of each month at Princeton, and I plan to continue visiting for the rest of my time here—even if it’s not always once a week.

Perhaps my favorite perk about being in a residential college community is the trips that the college council puts on. An incoming first-year student’s assignment to one of Princeton’s six residential colleges is completely random. This system was developed to encourage students to form relationships with diverse groups of people not restricted by academic interest or extracurricular involvement. Each college functions as a small community among the larger Princeton population, hosting its own events that mainly serve the students within that college. As a result, there is a lot of variety from college to college, with one of them being the sponsored trips.  

Because I live within my college, I am afforded a free first trip courtesy of Rockefeller College. Every subsequent trip costs $25. Trips range from Broadway shows to basketball games, and from escape rooms to amusement parks. As an avid theater fan, I am naturally drawn to the Broadway shows. During my time at Princeton, I’ve seen a total of five Broadway shows. Only one of which was not through Princeton (I saw Hamilton with a friend who won tickets through the lottery system!).

As a first-year, I saw the original cast of Waitress and The Color Purple. Both musicals left similarly vivid yet distinctly separate impressions on me. I had come to love them through different means.

Waitress was my first Broadway show, which made every part of the experience that much more exciting. I was introduced to Waitress through a song I didn’t know was part of this larger production. Before, I had simply known it as a song written by Sara Bareilles, an artist whose work I greatly admire, so imagine my surprise when I learned this song was only one of many quality songs pieced together to make a fantastic musical.

The Color Purple, on the other hand, is one of my all-time favorite books. This meant, unlike Waitress (which is also based on a book), I was already quite familiar with the plot. Thus, my fascination with this show lay in its transformation into the musical format. I had not listened to the soundtrack beforehand, like I did for Waitress. I was experiencing these songs for the first time in the audience. The Color Purple taught me how the powerful medium of musical performance could bring a beloved story to life, in ways different from reading the book or seeing a movie.

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This year, I saw Be More Chill during its preview runs! I did not know anything about the plotline nor had I listened to the soundtrack, which meant that this was a show I was not guaranteed to love. Instead, the musical slowly grew on me after the show. It was also a musical that featured an Asian female protagonist, which, in an industry that's working on its diversity, was very empowering and impactful to see on stage.

The most recent show I saw was Aladdin. Although I bought into the story less because of its idealistic nature, I was absolutely awestruck by the set, lighting and costume designs. The combination of these details made each scene shift very convincing. My favorite one was the magic carpet scene, which was simplistic in design yet effective in execution. The flying carpet was set against a black backdrop embellished with stars. At one time during one the songs, some cast members were rippling a large sheet on the stage. This mimicked the changing landscape and gave the illusion of movement. Aladdin involved a lot of choreography, which contributed to the energetic charm of the performance.

I’m incredibly grateful for the role Princeton has played in encouraging and fostering my passion for the arts. Onstage, Princeton has allowed me to explore a side of me I had never considered before coming to college. I never imagined myself singing or acting in public, but here I am, three years into college, involved in both the Princeton Triangle Club and VTone, an East Asian music group, while having also directed shows. Princeton offered me a space to take up my creative pursuits. Offstage, I can’t imagine how I could’ve afforded to see these shows on my own. One of the biggest barriers with attracting non-traditional audiences is accessibility. Having opportunities despite  these barriers has made me appreciate and treasure those moments when I'm sitting in the audience in front of a Broadway stage, waiting for the curtain to rise.  

Growing up I always loved baking. I loved to help my mom measure, whisk and sift. I loved when I was old enough to pick my own recipes and create my own dishes. Most of all, I loved the opportunity to enjoy the delicious sweet treats when they were finished.

As I got older, I had fewer and fewer opportunities to bake. Life got busy and baking simply wasn’t a priority. That said, I never lost my love for it. I assumed that when I got to Princeton, I would have even less time to bake or at the very least, no one to bake with — I was very wrong!

While I dabbled in some cooking and baking, it wasn’t until this past year that I really began to fully embrace my baking passion. I found a group of friends who were just as willing to crack open a good cookbook as I was.

We began by baking casually, some cookies here, some bread there. Before we knew it, we were baking multiple nights a week. As such, we decided to found our own baking club, dubbed “Thursday Night Home-Baking Group” funded by Princeton’s Center for Jewish Life (CJL) and open to all Princeton Students. We bake fully kosher (and mostly vegan) baked goods Thursday nights at 7:30 p.m. in the basement of the CJL. Past delicacies include everything from challah bread and bagels to three layer brownies and vegan cheesecake. After we bake, we distribute the goodies to our friends, in Frist Campus Center, around the CJL and of course to ourselves!

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Our efforts to create delicious treats that are kosher is an important part of the club and its values. For students at Princeton who keep strict-kosher, it is almost impossible to bake or cook in a social setting because there is no public Princeton kitchen with kosher cooking equipment. Noticing this lack and sharing a desire to be able to bake or cook with my friends, was one of the key factors that led me to acquire the supplies needed to make a baking club accessible to all.

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While students at Princeton are involved in a variety of different activities, helping to run this baking club has been one of the most rewarding leadership opportunities. It is a good reminder to take some time every week from the stresses of being a college student and make time for my friends while also doing something that I love. While in high school, I definitely struggled to find the balance between work and fun, my baking experience at Princeton has been another example of how college gives you so much more space to find balance.

When I first arrived on campus, I was apprehensive. There was only one other student from Honduras, and I was afraid of not adapting to American culture. Fortunately, during orientation, I attended one of the events organized by Princeton Latinos y Amigos. I was surprised by how welcoming the Latinx community was.

Back home, everyone was Honduran in my high school. I also went from speaking Spanish on a daily basis to only English. With the friends I made on campus, I was able to share why Honduras is an amazing country. I told them how much I missed the delicious food, great people and lively music.

Whenever I attended an event by Princeton Latinos y Amigos, I felt like I was back home. This is why I decided to be part of the board for the organization. As the current social media co-chair, I help organize events like Latinx Heritage Month, Posadas and the Fall Gala. There are many nationalities represented on the board, and we all bond over good food and Hispanic music. The board has become a second family to me, especially the upperclassmen who share advice on how to navigate academics at Princeton. They are people who I can count on and approach with any questions or concerns. I am always inspired by their achievements.

I am very grateful to the Latinx community for making me feel like I belong. There are several organizations, just like Princeton Latinos y Amigos that celebrate different ethnicities like the Black Student Union and the Chinese Students Association. My message to prospective students is that, no matter your race or nationality, you will find a home at Princeton.

It’s no secret that students at Princeton work hard in and out of the classroom. With skilled time-management, most Princetonians are able to avoid pulling all-nighters, but there’s likely not a student on campus who hasn’t had to stay awake late working on an assignment at least once. Some students tend to prefer studying alone when up late at night, but many of my friends and I take our few long evenings as an opportunity to enjoy each other’s company. Princeton kids tend to be ambitious and have the packed schedules to prove it. During the busiest weeks of the school year, (midterms and finals!) forming study groups can prove to be a much-needed social break.

Many students love to work with their friends later in the night at Murray-Dodge Café, a cozy spot on campus where students can pick up free fresh-baked cookies and tea. Most residential buildings on campus have elaborate basement areas with seating, tables, and study spaces, and it’s not uncommon to see entire first-year advisee groups crowded around tables in their residential halls as they all type away on their computers. Additionally, all residential college libraries are open 24-hours; seeing your friends in your college’s study space at odd hours goes a long way toward developing a college community.

Another element of the late-night study experience is grabbing a bite to eat with friends. Stopping by the train station Wawa, a convenience store, is a popular option for students in Forbes and Whitman colleges, and the hot food they serve late into the night is great study fuel. The Princeton University Store, or the “U-Store,” as it’s known to students, is extremely close to Rocky and Mathey colleges, as well as the bulk of upperclass student housing; it’s not uncommon to see a line stretching to the back of the store at 1 a.m. as hungry students stock up on snacks to get them down the home stretch. Students in Butler and Wilson colleges can stop by Studio '34, a convenience store-style late night snack stop known for its French bread pizzas and communal atmosphere.

Some of my fondest memories at school have been intermixed with the stress of a last-minute assignment or impending deadline. Friends and I have made little homes — replete with blankets, pillows and ample snacks — in the corners of library basements as we alternate between laughing at ourselves and actual productivity. I always tend to find that cookies in the eclectic varieties they make at Murray Dodge (peanut butter mint, M&M black tea or vegan lemon) make the prospect of going to bed at 2 a.m. a little less scary. 

I’ll admit, I’m not much of a late-night studier.  I usually try to be in bed by midnight — a goal that’s totally manageable for Princeton students! But time gets away from us all, and there are definitely days where I find myself traipsing to the U-Store in the wee hours or holing up in Mathey library. In a way, studying late at night with friends encapsulates what it’s like to be a student at Princeton. An interest in academic success, something nearly every student here shares, serves as a point of connection and an opportunity to forge the deeper bonds we’ll carry with us for the rest of our lives. 

This past summer, I completed an internship at the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) in Gaithersburg, Maryland. I applied for and accepted the internship through a program at Princeton, Princeton Internships in Civic Service, which provides students funding to complete otherwise unpaid internships in the public service sector. During my two months at the HSUS, I worked in the Public Relations department, and gained a treasure trove of valuable experience that will hopefully translate to positions I take in the future.

I’ve always been a big animal lover, so working at the Humane Society of the United States—whose central aim is to make the country a safer, more humane place for animals to coexist with humans—was a natural fit. My day-to-day work consisted largely of drafting press releases and emails, researching and interfacing with reporters, tracking news coverage of the organization and writing tweets for the HSUS Public Relations Twitter account. 

However, every single day in the office was different! There were always a bevy of miscellaneous projects I could help work on if I’d already completed my daily tasks, and across departments people were always happy to have help from an intern. There were also many dedicated intern events at the office, which served as opportunities both to learn more about the larger HSUS organization and to meet interns who worked in different fields or areas of the building. On multiple occasions, we didn’t even report to the office for work; instead, we got to travel around the D.C. area and participate in experimental food tastings (the future of college cafeterias is bright!) and professional development trainings. 

One of the coolest things I did during my experience at the HSUS was participating in my first Animal Rescue Team mission. One rainy weekend, my coworkers and I traveled to a small airport in Virginia where we helped unload approximately 100 animals off a plane they’d been loaded onto in Mississippi, where they were rescued from a severe domestic cruelty situation. Helping the animals off the plane and then sending them off to their future shelter homes (and, hopefully, forever homes after that!) was such a gratifying experience and alone would have made the internship worthwhile. 

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Prior to my work with the Humane Society of the United States, I’d not had any hands-on experience with the nonprofit sector or its inner workings. My summer in Gaithersburg, though, demonstrated to me not only valuable professional skills but also the immensely commendable physical, mental and emotional effort that goes into working for a better world.

There are several housing options at Princeton. Students can choose to live in a single, double or in a quad. I live in a quad, and I must admit, it is pretty amazing. Quads consist of two bedrooms connected with a common room. You get to bond with your roommates and learn to live with other people.

In the weeks before the start of classes, my roommates and I started to buy items for the common room. One of our first bonding experiences was carrying a couch from one end of campus to the other. The couch was heavy, it was 80 degrees outside, and we lived on the third floor. We felt very accomplished that day.

One of the first things you notice when you walk into our common room are the flags. My quad is pretty international; my roommates are from Colombia, Italy and Sweden, and I am from Honduras. I enjoy listening to my roommates’ stories about growing up and what they miss most from home. I also feel reassured that I am not the only one adjusting to American culture and that we are in it together.

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Even though we all share the common room and part of the bedrooms, we each get personal spaces. I decided to decorate my desk with family pictures and a big whiteboard calendar. I also hang posters about my favorite TV shows next to my bed. For me, a quad is the perfect living situation because if I want privacy I can be in my bedroom, and if I am feeling social I can hang out in the common room. It is the best of both worlds.

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Coming into Princeton, I thought I wanted my own space and to live in a single, but living in a quad has been an incredible experience. My roommates have become my best friends on campus. No matter what your living situation is at Princeton, there will be advantages and disadvantages, but I encourage prospective students to consider living with roommates for their first few years.

I still remember the day my roommates and I moved into our quad our first year here, with bustling containers filled to the brim with clothes and supplies and frothy introductions in voices two octaves too high. I had already spent three nights in our room because International Orientation (IO) had started a few days before regular Orientation (a blur that was no match for jetlag).

My first weeks here were strung together by the theme of being lost but not wanting to pull out the color-coded map Princeton kindly provided for fear of appearing like (gasp) a first-year. Also memorable was the constant flux of confusion present in any audience when I told them my name in introduction.

“How do you spell that?”, they’d ask, politely.

“Zet, Ee, X-…”

“…Zet?”

It took a few weeks to extract stray weeds of Malaysian slang from my English. The International Orientation leaders had warned us of the American tendency to ask “how are you?” before walking off just as you conjure up a good summary of your day. (I’ll keep you updated on whether I ever respond to “what’s up?” with anything but “…the ceiling?”).

I’m sure there must have been a time when I doubted if I would ever feel like this campus had a place for me, too — but that time is as long gone as the color-coded map I once stole looks at when I thought no one was looking. There’s hardly room for feeling like you don’t belong when you’re shoulder-to-shoulder with an assignment partner in the trenches of a problem set, or in the cavern of bugs present in code written too late at night.

When I look back on my first year here, all I see is awkward small talk quickly dissolving into a chorus of Disney songs managed while juggling balloons, trips to New York stolen between papers, and study breaks spent arguing over what a biscuit should look like.

(A biscuit is nearly exactly like a cookie.)

Light cascaded through the curved windows as we slopped paint onto the wall.

Mural painting occurred in shifts. First, actually applying the paint. Second, stepping away from the wall to make sure that you could see the entire picture. And third, convincing yourself that the last stripe you painted on the tiger wasn’t the wrong color. Now picture this activity in a curved stairwell, where the tiger looks different depending on the angle. And where there really isn’t much room for you to step back so that you’re sufficiently far from the wall, at least not without flopping your left foot into the welcoming mouth of an orange paint bucket.

As a designer for the Student Design Agency, I work on design projects for various departments at Princeton. This mural was larger than most projects, so I had the opportunity to work with two other designers. Since I was a new member, I hadn’t met either of them before, but that did not stop us from quickly falling in tandem — passing each other brushes of the right size, ducking out of the way when someone had to paint above the current location of your head and quickly handing along the drop cloth when an inevitable drop of paint trickled down the wrong part of the wall.

Only a week before, I had sketched out the design and sent it to the client who commissioned it for approval. It felt like a grander-than-life ordeal, tracking an idea from a thought to a sketch, to 9 feet of curved stairwell.

The issue with working in a stairwell is that of post-event foot traffic where, at times, we had to politely suggest the use of an elevator. But not to worry we benefited by taking one too many breaks to eat tortilla chips leftover from the event. Tortilla chips over salsa, laughter and the scrutiny of drying paint.

The beautiful thing about Princeton is that it gives you many opportunities to create — in whatever form you want, and in the time and the space that best suits you. And in exchange, it feels great to literally leave your mark on these walls.

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