My Princeton Summer Experience

Working as a tour guide, I’ve had the opportunity to spend much of this summer living on campus at Princeton University. This has been, generally speaking, an enjoyable experience, but there are some important ways in which life at Princeton during the school year differs from life at Princeton over the summer. Most noticeably, the campus is fairly devoid of Princeton students themselves, with the exception of those conducting research or working a campus job. Princeton does not offer any summer classes, so most students take the opportunity to spend the summer pursuing internships and other programs across the globe. However, many visitors travel to campus to attend our information sessions and tours.

Summers at Princeton have allowed me to develop a renewed appreciation for the campus. Without classes, work or extracurricular activities to manage, I’ve been able to dedicate additional time to enjoying the peaceful beauty of Princeton’s lovely buildings and outdoor spaces. A weekend trip to, in my opinion, the unpleasantly loud and bustling New York City helped remind me how much I value living and studying in a place as quiet and serene as Princeton, while not being completely in the middle of nowhere. Exercising at Dillon Gym has also been a nice change of pace.

Not everything is so rosy, however. Having grown up in Florida, I assumed that summer temperatures up North would be easily manageable. I was punished for my hubris, quickly discovering that the New Jersey summer gave Florida a run for its money with its heat and humidity. One heat wave in early July produced “feels-like” temperatures well above 100 degrees and sent me fleeing from my non-air-conditioned room in search of a building with air-conditioning. Summer is also, understandably, the time in which much construction and renovation takes place, with iconic Princeton structures such as Blair Arch and Nassau Hall, among others, undergoing significant construction. Hopefully, this will show visitors that Princeton works hard to keep its buildings from falling into disrepair. Finally, the inability to eat all my meals in a dining hall during the summer has made procuring food more difficult. But Wawa, a convenience store with food options on campus, fortunately offers a summer sale on hoagies that has produced some savings, given the probably-unhealthy number of said hoagies I have consumed.

Soon, however, the Wawa hoagie sale will come to an end and Princeton students will reconvene on campus from all over the world. While spending the summer on campus has been a generally positive experience, I still eagerly await the fall. As much as I love the campus itself, the community of students is what really makes Princeton a special place.

Community at Princeton

One of the most common questions I get asked is, "What made you choose Princeton?" and the answer isn't as simple for me as it is for some.

Poker at Princeton

The Main Event of the 49^th Annual World Series of Poker concluded in Las Vegas, with the nine remaining players from a field of 7,874 vying for a championship bracelet and a first-place prize of 8.8 million dollars. 2,500 miles away, a somewhat smaller and less lucrative poker tournament series took place in the Friend Center Convocation Room at Princeton during the 2017-2018 school year – the Princeton Series of Poker.

Like the World Series of Poker, the PSOP attracts a mix of serious and recreational players to compete in the great game of No Limit Texas Hold’Em. Over the course of the year, the PSOP hosts seven or eight tournaments, which each attract somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 - 75 Princeton students looking to win prizes and earn points to climb the official PSOP leaderboard.

In many ways, the PSOP epitomizes the ways in which Princeton benefits its students. For one, the generosity of the University allows it to subsidize tournaments, providing dinner and giving students the opportunity to win prizes without having to pay an entry fee. (In a somewhat amusing twist, poker has been classified as a wholesome enough activity to receive money from the Alcohol Initiative Committee, which funds “late night social alternatives.”) Also, the tournaments receive attention from companies, particularly quantitative trading firms, interested in recruiting Princeton students. A number of such companies have sponsored tournaments and dispatched employees to deal tables and interact with students. One company even sent Jerrod Ankenman, the author of the well-known book The Mathematics of Poker, as a representative.

The most enjoyable aspect of the tournaments, however, is the ability to play with other Princeton students. The atmosphere is always friendly and energetic, as poker enthusiasts and newbies alike casually chat about hands, relishing the opportunity to apply their capable analytic abilities to an activity other than problem sets or papers. To me, these tournaments serve as good evidence for prospective students unconvinced that Princeton students do anything besides study – they show that a consistent group of students are willing to put their work aside to eat pizza and play a game, at least for a few hours.

Public Bathrooms and Community

“Where have you found your community this year?”

Princeton's student housing organization sent out a survey posing this question. I answered in the typical fashion: activities, my co-op, my classes, the friends in my major, etc. Oh, and the bathroom.

For the first two years at Princeton, I enjoyed a private bathroom with my roommate. We reveled in our privacy and often boasted about our private bathroom status. We didn’t want to even think about fighting over showers or wearing shower sandals. At the end of sophomore year, I was accepted into the Edwards Collective, a residential community on campus for those interested in the arts and humanities. I was ecstatic and was only concerned about one thing: a public bathroom. To my surprise, shower sandals aren’t so bad. And I only rarely had to wait to hop in the shower. The horror stories my other friends told didn’t match my experience at all. In fact, some of the best parts of my day were spent there.

The secret? My hallmates were chatty in the bathroom. As we brushed our teeth or washed our faces, we’d swap stories about our days. I looked forward to hearing more about the progression of someone’s senior thesis or seeing new videos of a dance routine. With a few of my hallmates, it was a time to practice my German and discuss deep ecology. With everyone, it was a time of encouragement and sympathy. During finals, every exchange ended with wishes of good luck and gentle admonishments to get some more sleep and to take care of oneself.

Many first-year students want singles and private bathrooms. In my opinion, this mentality reflects how some students first think about success. Upon arrival, you may want to isolate yourself and only focus on your studies. Over time, you start to realize that your success isn’t dependent on others’ failures. In fact, connecting with other people and hearing about their passions is a great way to deepen your education.

So, even those late night talks in robes and sweatpants have value. They’re an integral part of the Princeton experience, and a pleasant reminder that you belong.

MTV My Cribs - Dorm Edition

Welcome to the Princeton edition of “MTV Cribs.” On this episode, we will be highlighting some of the different types of dorms we have here at Princeton. We have a total of six residential colleges, and these pictures show just a few examples of the many types of rooms that are available. We have buildings dating back to the late 1800s and others that were built within the past few decades. We have singles, doubles, quads, apartment-style housing and suites that house ten people. Needless to say, no two rooms are the same, but hopefully these rooms will give you an idea of the types of dorms you can expect at Princeton.

1) Apartment: These apartments consist of four singles, a common room, a kitchen and a bathroom. These rooms are designed for upper-class students who are independent and not on a meal plan.

2) Three Room Double: This is an example of a three room double. There are two bedrooms and a common room. Note, this type of style is rare and is typically reserved for RCAs, Residential College Advisors, who help with advising first-year and second-year students about life as a college student.

3) Double: This is an example of a double, which is shared by two people. In addition to the shared bedroom, the roommates also share a private bathroom.

4) Double: Here are a few other examples of doubles.

5) Single: Here are a few examples of singles.

6) Double: In this type of double there are two individual bedrooms and two separate bathrooms, where one has a shower and the other has a toilet, along with a little entryway.

6) Quad: This is an example of a quad. Quads will typically have two shared bedrooms and a larger common room.

Why We All Love Princeton

Choosing where to go to college is a huge step, one that will affect you for the rest of your life. Although looking ahead towards your future is important, it is also crucial to understand and think about your past. I’ve taken some time to reflect on my own pre-university experience. I remember my alumni interviewer asked me why I applied to Princeton, but the real question is: why did I ultimately choose to enroll?

Since each student has a different motive for enrolling, I decided to put together a small collection of reasons why my fellow bloggers and I chose Princeton. Hopefully this will help shed some light on why we all love Princeton!

Personally, I chose to enroll at Princeton University because of the Woodrow Wilson School, the prestigious academics and the generous financial aid. Even in high school, I knew I wanted to focus on international relations in college before going to law school. Although many other schools could have helped me reach those goals, I had visited Princeton and the world renowned Woodrow Wilson School many times, and I felt at home with the students and professors. I love challenging myself, so the academics here really drew me in as well. Finally, the financial aid program at Princeton was truly a blessing; my family has two children in college at the moment, so Princeton’s willingness to help with the process was welcomed with open arms.

Michelle Greenfield '18: “I chose to come to Princeton because of the incredible opportunities students have (both research and extracurricular), the wonderful mentorship available by professors, the conversations I had with currents, and lastly the great atmosphere I felt when I visited.”

Abigail Denton '20: “Obviously, there are tons of incredible things about Princeton, but there were a few other equally good schools available to me. In the end, it came down to price. Princeton was the cheapest option for me because of its generous financial aid. Plus, it didn’t hurt that my brother - at the moment I opened the acceptance letter from Princeton - started jumping up and down, screaming that I had made it into the #1 school in the U.S. He loves lists and records, so being able to give him the joy of being connected to some sort of #1 ranking was simply the sweet icing on the delicious cake that is being accepted into a school with great academics, a welcoming student body and a generous financial aid system.”

Jordan Brown '19: “The main reason I chose Princeton was because I knew since around junior of high school that I'd want to major in economics; since Princeton is world-renowned for its economics department, I thought it would be a natural fit. I also thought that being immersed in such an intellectual group of people would certainly help me and push me to grow as well.”

Ellie Maag '19: “Besides the incredible resources and professors, the thing that made Princeton the best fit for me was the student body. Students here are the kind of people that want to stay up all night discussing politics and philosophy. The kind of people who can move seamlessly from working on organic chemistry in a lab to starring in a dance show. Instead of ruthless, mechanical drive, I see warmth and passion in my peers. The people here are the best not because they want to beat everyone else but because their studies light up their lives.”

Teresa Irigoyen-Lopez '19: “For me, it was the Bridge Year Program that convinced me I had a lot to gain from what Princeton offers. In my high school dorm in a cold Norwegian fjord I stopped dreaming about the actual start of my University career and realized that taking a gap or 'bridge' year would be an incredible opportunity and that if Princeton was encouraging its incoming students to do such a thing it might really be a good fit for me!”

A Visit to Campus

When Princeton was first founded in 1746 as the College Of New Jersey, classes were held in Elizabeth, New Jersey, before Nassau Hall, the oldest building on our campus, was completed in 1756. Over Princeton’s history, new buildings have been erected and old ones torn down to make space for new ones or renovations, but it is the campus that gives life to the experience of students here. If you have the chance to visit our campus, I definitely encourage you to go on an Orange Key campus tour. Here are some other spots that I love, which you may not get a chance to explore on your tour.

Feel free to follow along on a campus map! Starting from the top of campus at Firestone and heading towards Poe Field at the bottom of campus, here are some of my favorite spots around campus and some things that you should do and see while you're here:

Please, oh please, visit Firestone Library and Chancellor Green. Who knows? Maybe you’ll fall in love with the libraries and decide you never want to leave (I know I did)! Firestone is the largest library on campus and Chancellor Green is non-circulating but absolutely beautiful. Here’s a post describing why I love them both!

On your way down campus, stop in Murray Dodge Café, located in the basement of Murray Dodge Hall to pick up some free cookies or tea! Murray Dodge Café offers free cookies and tea every day from 3 p.m. to midnight—it is a much-loved spot on campus!
After you’ve stopped in Murray Dodge Café, head into the Princeton University Art Museum (PUAM). PUAM is an encyclopedic museum, including modern and contemporary art, prints and drawings, Asian art, African art, Ancient, Byzantine and Islamic art; American art, photography and art of the Ancient Americas. I enjoy taking time to relax by walking through the museum or reading a book in one of the back rooms where a cozy spot overlooks Prospect Gardens.

Behind PUAM are Prospect Gardens and Prospect House, a faculty dining and social space.

Spend a couple of minutes reading a book in Prospect Gardens.
It is an absolutely beautiful spot where flowers seem to bloom year-round and dozens of students move throughout the space.

Walk through Prospect Gardens, passing by the Woolworth Center for Musical Studies, home to the Department of Music, to get to Frist Campus Center.

Sit in Frist Campus Center for a few hours. People play pool, buy tickets to student events, pick up mail and packages, buy candy from the C-Store, watch football games, attend Princeton Student Events Committee (PSEC) events and advertise for student events here. They also grab coffee, visit the McGraw Center for Teaching and Learning to receive tutoring, attend events in the Women*s Center or LGBT Center, chat with Undergraduate Student Government (USG) representatives and attend classes. It is one of the busiest hubs of student motion on campus—it’s kind of our campus living room.
While you’re in Frist, visit the East Asian Library on the third floor. I didn’t discover the Jones section of the library and the fourth floor stacks until my second year; when I finally made my way there, it felt like I’d found Narnia.

When you have had your fill of people-watching in Frist, head out through the back to get to Guyot Hall.

Guyot Hall was once home to the E. M. Museum of Geology and Archaeology. Nowadays you can visit several fossils on display in the atrium including the Antrodemus, a dinosaur excavated in 1941 during a dig led by Professor Glenn Jepson ’27.
While you're heading down campus, visit the outdoor amphitheater in Butler College. When I lived in Butler as a sophomore, I spent many spring afternoons working in the amphitheater. It's a beautiful and quiet spot and feels like an escape from the hustle and bustle on campus.
Walk down to Poe Field! Weather is hard to predict, but if it is sunny and warm you are likely to find students playing frisbee, soccer or relaxing and working on Poe Field at the bottom of campus. I love to spend warm afternoons relaxing or reading on Poe, but it's also the easiest way to get down to the Princeton Towpath, which is a popular spot for students to run. Personally, I don't like running, but it's nice to be able to go for a walk and immediately feel like you are miles away from campus.
From Poe, you can also check out the Princeton Neuroscience Institute, the Carl C. Icahn Laboratory, head across Streicker Bridge to visit the Frick Chemistry Laboratory or cross campus to visit the beautiful, new Lewis Center for the Arts by the Princeton "Dinky" Station.

From the earliest Georgian, Ruskian and Tudor Gothic buildings at the top of campus to the brand new Lewis Center for the Arts, it is, in part, the beautiful spaces and places on our campus that help make Princeton feel like a home.

Living History

Over the past two and a half years here, I have learned to move around Princeton's campus in different ways. Each year, equipped with a new schedule of courses, new interests, new friends and new habits, I have found different rhythms for life here.

As a first year student, timid and unfamiliar with Princeton’s campus, I adventured, explored and discovered new spaces with an urgent desire to know every inch of Princeton’s campus. I tromped from library to library, lugging heavy books and notebooks, to find the spots where I felt most comfortable — nooks, crannies and corners where I could settle in to devour books, write essays and study vocabulary in Spanish. Craving solitude, I spent time outdoors, exploring the tow path that runs along Lake Carnegie and spending hours reading and working outside on Poe Field and in Prospect Gardens. Somewhere in between the endless buses, trains and flights it took to reach my hometown each break, I discovered that Princeton, too, felt like home.

Now, several semesters later, the rhythm of my life has changed again. Princeton is still a home to me, but life, of course, has changed.

As I grow and my rhythm on campus changes, the campus itself remains just the same. Although new buildings pop up and old, familiar ones seem to morph and change through renovations, Princeton’s campus is the enduring heart of the University. Many buildings have stood for centuries since Princeton was first transplanted from its original site in Elizabeth, New Jersey, to the town of Princeton in 1756.

Princeton’s past is a part of its present. Princeton does not tell its history, but contains it in the pieces of our campus and the University that stretch across generations, the past lives of buildings that have been renovated to serve the new and the people that have contributed to the University’s evolution and longevity.

Princeton’s history hides in the walls of Nassau Hall, which have stood through multiple devastating fires and now bear plaques from graduating classes since the late 1870s; it hides in buildings that have been made anew, serving new purposes and functions — in East Pyne and Chancellor Green, once home to the University’s only library, a student center and a pub, or in the Julis Romo Rabinowitz building, the Old Frick Chemistry Laboratory, a building which, when I arrived to campus, was just in the early stages of renovations to become a new home for the Department of Economics and the Louis A. Simpson International Building. History lurks in the corners of classrooms, where perhaps John Foster Dulles, Princeton Class of 1908 and United States Secretary of State from 1953 to 1959, studied diplomacy or where Albert Einstein once lectured on the theory of relativity. Students today share our campus with the legacies and histories of those who have come before us, taking part in Princeton’s living history.

As students at Princeton, we are privileged to move through the same spaces, embody the same intellectual values and share the same Princeton spirit as the generations of movers and shakers who have graduated from Princeton before us — authors, artists, Nobel Laureates, Supreme Court Justices and even Presidents. As undergraduate students here, our time here is fleeting. Four years are but a blip in Princeton’s history; the buildings have stood for years before us and they will stand long after we are gone, accumulating new histories.

Yet, as one of my favorite plaques in 1879 Arch proudly proclaims: “Princeton is part of you. You are part of Princeton.”

Following Passions Across the Atlantic

Right now, I’m sitting in a café in Copenhagen, waiting for the next film in the festival to start.

How did I get here? Last semester, I took a class called “Vernacular Filmmaking” with Professor Erika Kiss. I wrote a final paper for the course on Thomas Vinterberg, a Danish filmmaker.

This paper inspired me to look further into Danish cinema. I spoke to my professor about it, and she encouraged me to apply for funding to explore this research further. I applied, explaining my interest, and was granted funding to study in Copenhagen for a week. During this time, I’ll be researching Danish cinema and learning about documentary filmmaking at CPH:DOX, the Copenhagen International Film Festival.

Before I came to Princeton, the only films I watched were comedies and blockbuster hits with my family. All I knew was that I liked French and Norwegian and reading lots of books.

Since then, I’ve discovered so many fields. I’ve truly embraced the idea of interdisciplinary studies and taken classes about philosophy, politics, literature, languages, anthropology and film.

As a high school student, the only path I could picture was studying English and becoming a lawyer.

Now, it’s not so easy to plan my future. I can imagine being an anthropologist, a politician, a professor, a filmmaker, a businesswoman and even an archaeologist (inspired by my latest class on the Vikings).

I’m enjoying my week so far in Copenhagen. I can’t wait until I find my next spark and study something completely new and exciting.

Committing to Princeton

Toward the end of my senior year in high school, I skyped my mom from my school in Norway and teasingly said, "I’m going to spend next year in China!" It was a joke, I wanted to scare her a bit and see how she yelled that I was not going to be so far away from home again. Moving away from home when I was just 16 years old and studying in a boarding school in Norway had been a great adventure, yet it had also been hard to leave my family behind when I was so young. It was this distance and fear of forever being away that was making my decision to pick a university so hard. I did not know where to go. I knew my mom was also afraid that we would gradually grow more distant, so going to China was, in all seriousness, a complete joke. Instead, she was ecstatic when she heard my false news. She soon started telling me about all her adventures in China when she had lived there before I was born. She asked me a million questions and grew more excited as I mumbled and tried to satisfy her curiosity by reading the information in the pamphlet I held in my hand.

I had gotten my Princeton acceptance packet a few days earlier. Inside it, I had found a brochure about the University’s Bridge Year Program. At first, I ignored it; taking a gap year was not a thing people did in Spain, and it felt more like something high school students in Hollywood movies would do. And it did sound really movie-like: "a tuition-free program that allows a select number of incoming freshmen to begin their Princeton experience by engaging in nine months of University-sponsored service at one of five international locations." Why would the University want its students to start off their degree by going away? I read over it and glanced at the pictures, never actually thinking that months later it would be me who would be standing on a mountain in Yunnan. The five locations offered that year were India, China, Peru, Senegal and Brazil; China felt both the furthest and coolest.

After that Skype call, I reread the brochure, I researched the program and read blog entries from current and past participants. Suddenly, spending a year in China seemed more exciting. I also wanted to befriend the taxi drivers of Kunming and learn how to cook Chinese dishes like the past participants said they had done. I wanted to learn Mandarin and hike around Western China, learn more about community-based initiatives and how to appreciate a new culture. So I decided to apply.

In order to start my application and be able to do the program, I first had to be a Princeton student, so I quickly accepted the University offer. Ironically, it was this possibility of a bridge year in China that made my college decision so easy. Looking back now, I find it funny; I could very easily not have selected to participate in the Bridge Year Program. But I think it was more the fact that Princeton was offering that opportunity to its admitted students, that it saw the many benefits of spending time abroad, of experiential learning and highlighted the importance of multicultural understanding that made me pick the University. I had a great high school experience where I had learned to view education as much more than classes and textbooks, and it seemed that Princeton also thought being outside of the classroom could bring many benefits.

That year in China has defined not only my Princeton experience but also my identity in more ways that I could possibly describe. It made me passionate about so many things that are now vital to me, it made me a more adventurous and confident person, it completely altered my worldview and deepened my interest in a whole new region. It even brought me closer to my family, as I was able to share a similar experience to the one that my mom had living in China when she was in her thirties. It was this - a joke about a brochure - that made it possible for me to be writing this blog post from my room on Princeton’s campus, yet I still think that imagining oneself participating in the opportunities that each University offers, and thinking about which ones can make one grow most might be a great way of making this college decision. Good luck, everyone!

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