Like many students at Princeton, I did not end up concentrating in the department I had anticipated as an incoming first-year. It’s completely acceptable and in fact quite normal to change your concentration throughout your time at Princeton. 

As a first-year, I expected to end up in the English department. I’ve always loved to read and write and had originally planned on becoming an English teacher. I took a couple English classes and enjoyed them overall, but at the same time, my professional interests shifted away from teaching and towards the world of politics.

I first considered public policy and political advocacy as a potential career path after I attended an event on Capitol Hill focused on disability rights during my senior year of high school. I heard from leading disability rights advocates and then talked to members of Congress, and I found myself wondering what it would be like if I could do this every day. The summer after my first year of college, I interned at a disability rights organization. I loved my experience and I realized this really could be a career I could see myself pursuing in the future. 

When I began my sophomore year, I knew I needed to make a decision soon about my concentration. I decided to take an English class about science fiction, a politics class about state politics and a class in the School of Public and International Affairs (SPIA) about education policy. I found myself looking forward to my education policy class the most because I enjoyed learning about the importance of education and the barriers to academic success that still need to be addressed. I gained valuable experiences in policy research, such as writing a literature review and a policy memo. This amazing class helped me decide that SPIA was the right department for me. 

I want to be clear that there was nothing wrong with the English department. I just realized that as much as I love to read and write, I wanted to learn about public policy and the world as a whole instead of focusing on literature. I also really liked the format of SPIA’s junior independent work, which includes a policy taskforce. Luckily, I did not have to completely abandon my interest in reading and writing because I also decided to pursue a certificate in Journalism.

Although it was a tough decision, I feel confident that concentrating in SPIA was the right decision for my academic and professional interests. I am grateful that Princeton makes Bachelor of Arts (A.B.) students wait to declare a concentration until sophomore spring because it gave me the freedom to explore multiple departments to help me find the best fit.

In my freshman seminar, Ethics in Finance, there were several guest speakers that came to class to discuss their experiences in the finance world. One of those guests was John Bogle, the founder of Vanguard and 1951 graduate of Princeton. His innovative career and commitment to philanthropy truly inspired me and he remains one of my biggest role models. I was fortunate to meet him before he, unfortunately, passed away in 2019, leaving behind a legacy of service.

During his guest lecture, he recalled how his senior thesis at Princeton served as a launchpad for Vanguard. While Bogle didn't invent the index fund, which bought and held all of the stocks in the S&P 500 index, his index fund was the first available to the masses and it changed the ways Americans saved and planned for retirement. He talked about the negative side of finance, in which banks are mostly interested in garnering profits. He disrupted this industry by providing the average American the tools to grow their investments in a reliable fund. 

Bogle's career is also one of philanthropy and intellectual curiosity. He has written more than ten books, one of which I received with his signature. He has also given back a great deal to Princeton, having donated what is now Bogle Hall in Butler College and providing funding for undergraduates to pursue their own summer internships in service.

His life story really resonated with me as I have always aspired to create good and leave my mark in this world. He was a pioneer of his time and his success is inspiring as he attended Princeton, meaning that I can aspire to do impactful things just like he did. Having the opportunity to meet alumni like Bogle has been one of the highlights of my Princeton experience. 

One of the toughest choices to make every semester as a Princeton student is course selection. This may not seem immediately apparent once you set foot on campus (especially as an engineering concentrator) as our first-year schedules are often congested with mandatory prerequisite courses. However, once you declare your concentration and move past the introductory courses, you have more availability to delve much deeper into specific interests and even explore courses outside of your comfort zone. Thus far, I have really enjoyed my classes this spring semester as a sophomore, and one in particular has changed my approach to understanding molecular biology and bioengineering -- Biomechanics and Biomaterials: From Cells to Organisms (MAE344).  While I am taking this course initially to fulfill one of my requirements for the Engineering Biology certificate, it's turning out to be an amazing class experience that I would recommend to any engineering concentrator.  

First of all, the instructor for the course, Professor Daniel Cohen, is extremely knowledgeable and is currently spearheading research in controlling group behaviors in tissues. His lectures, which never fail to spark my interest, strike a healthy balance between teaching important biology concepts and establishing mathematical intuition necessary for engineering. For example, one of the lectures dealt with one of the most groundbreaking methods employed in this field for cell imaging: atomic force microscopy (AFM). AFM relies on a tiny cantilever to detect specific features on the surface of a cell by measuring deflection forces that result from interaction with the cell. While Professor Cohen emphasized the cantilever equations that are pivotal for AFM, he also carefully explained the advantages of using different cantilever tips for certain applications. He ensured that we did not simply memorize the material, but that we were able to think critically and synthesize from the scientific techniques that we learned.

In addition to the lectures, the class also meets every other week for “journal club,” in which we read an assigned scientific journal article so that we can discuss anything we find interesting. This has been tremendously helpful because these sessions have trained me to skim through an article in order to parse through specific information. At times, academic writing can often be very dense, cluttered with jargon and indecipherable figures, and it used to take me hours to get the general gist of a paper. However, I can now take this newfound skill with me through the rest of college and even graduate school.

I’m also looking forward to the final project, where we will take all that we've learned and will individually attempt to solve a bioengineering problem by designing a biointerface, allowing us to fully embrace our creativity.

I have really enjoyed this class so far and encourage anyone interested in the physics of cells and tissues to take it!

One defining component of Princeton’s academic curriculum is its preceptorial system. While classes are already small, precepts offer students the opportunity to engage with course materials in small discussion groups. The precept is like an open forum in which the preceptor or professor guides students in an invigorating intellectual discussion.

Precepts provide you with the tools and framework necessary to fully grasp and understand the course material. You get to utilize what you learn in lectures to critically analyze texts. Often, while humanities precepts revolve around readings, for quantitative courses, precepts allow you to go over practice problems or tough concepts as a class.

One of my favorite precepts has been in “Approaches to American History.” In this course, the class was divided into two small precepts of twelve students and the professor. The course consisted of only primary sources related to 3 major historical events. While many of the readings were lengthy and at times difficult to understand, being able to deconstruct their meaning with my peers proved indispensable. I also noticed that at the beginning I was scared to voice my opinion or participate, but by the end of the class, I was more comfortable contributing to the conversation and crafting my own arguments. 

Another precept I really enjoyed was in the class “Technology and Society.” What made this precept really special is that this course was interdisciplinary, so there were students from a variety of concentrations, all the way from sociology to mechanical aerospace engineering, so we all had different perspectives on the readings. When we were discussing misinformation in the media, computer science concentrators shared potential technical solutions that could spot tweets with false information, while humanities concentrators shared the implications behind “fake news” and the role of social media companies. There were many times when my opinion changed on certain technological issues because of what a student shared. This is what precept is all about!

Before coming to Princeton, I was apprehensive at the prospect of participating in a precept, but I have gained so much from them in regards to crafting my own arguments and challenging my own thinking. I have also been able to form bonds with the professors and my peers because of the meaningful interactions that small precept sizes naturally facilitate. My academic experience at Princeton wouldn’t be the same without the preceptorial system!

Although all Princeton students were invited back to campus for the Spring 2021 semester, students also had the option to continue learning remotely.  I’m one of those students who chose to continue remotely — but I also was looking for a change of pace from the Fall 2020 semester.  Instead of staying at home in Colorado, I’m currently living in the Czech Republic with my grandparents.

I decided to make the move in order to spend more time with my extended family and to sharpen up my Czech language skills.  I study Slavic Languages & Literatures at Princeton, but there’s nothing quite like an in-person immersion to really ramp up the pace of learning.  Here’s what my typical school day looks like: 

8:30 a.m. - I usually wake up around this time.  Because of the time difference, all my classes are in the evening, so I don’t need to set alarms to wake up.  One of the perks of living off campus!  After I wake up, I get ready for the day and make myself tea and bread with jam for breakfast.  

9:30 a.m. - Time for work.  I check my email and then start working on assignments.  Today, I’m working on a problem set for my linguistics course.  Later, I’ll read a poem for my Russian course, so I’m prepared to ask questions and comment on the material during class.  If I finish early, I might get a head start on my readings for my history seminar — I do about 150 pages of reading a week for all of my courses.  

12:00 p.m. - Lunchtime!  During the week, my grandma usually cooks meals so I have time for my coursework.  On the weekends, I cook or we make something together.  She’s an excellent cook!  After the meal, I help clean up.  

1:00 p.m. - Now it’s time for our daily walk! It’s a cloudy day, but it’s not windy or cold.  We had snow here for a while, but it’s finally melted and we can see the beginnings of spring.  Today’s route takes us past the river, and we also get to see some animals.

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2:30 p.m. - After our walk, we have our afternoon coffee or tea.  It’s nice enough to sit outside today while we sip. 

3:00 p.m. - Back to my desk to finish anything I need to do before classes.  Usually I have more emails around this time, as those on campus begin their day.  

4:00 p.m. - Classes start!  I’m on Zoom for my linguistics lecture and my Czech class. 

6:00 p.m. - A short break for dinner before the rest of my classes.  For me, lunch is usually the biggest meal of the day and dinner is something quick.  

6:30 p.m. - Back to Zoom for the rest of my classes.  My Russian class is first, and then I have another break before my linguistics precept.  

10:30 p.m. - Classes are finally over and it’s time for bed.  Tomorrow is another full day!

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Everyone’s new at college, until they aren’t.

Last semester, I took a fairly easy schedule, all things considered — I was only taking classes with other first-years, or 200-level introductory courses. I wanted to give myself a chance to ease into the college experience and try out some extracurriculars without feeling like I was straining myself. I highly recommend this strategy for incoming students. As first semesters go, I had a very good one.

That was then, and this is now; I took my first “real” class this semester, a lingusitics course, LIN 306: The Structure and Meaning of Words. Unlike all my other classes, this class had prerequisites (gasp!) and is filled mostly with sophomores, juniors and seniors. The first day of class, we shared our backgrounds and reasons for taking the class. As the spotlight moved around our virtual classroom, my heart began to sink: it sounded like everyone in the class was an upperclassmen studying in the department, who had taken years of collegiate linguistics. All I had under my belt was the introductory course! I was worried about what I’d gotten myself into, and I felt very much like a little kid playing dress up. Everyone else in the class was a real linguistics student, and I was just a fraud.

To my surprise, the first lecture passed, and then the second, and the third, and I found myself understanding a lot of it. Sometimes, the professor would ask a question, and someone would respond so quickly that I didn’t have time to register the question or the response. But other times, the professor would ask a question, and another student would respond, and I would be thinking the same thing. And still other times, the professor would ask a question, and I would answer myself. The places where I found myself struggling were places where others were struggling as well.

Now, the semester is still young. Ask me in May, and perhaps I’ll tell you that taking a 300-level linguistics course was one of the worst mistakes of my life. But I doubt that will happen. I’m enjoying the course, and if I take the time to do the readings and work on the homework independently before I study with others, I find myself able to keep up the course — and the other “real” students in it. Rather than thinking about my schedule as having “real” classes and easy classes, there are just classes, and the students that take them, and the homework and the exams. 

Make no mistake, you should try to figure out a schedule that works for you. I started this semester with five classes, but quickly dropped to four! It wasn’t realistic for me to take all five with the extracurriculars I was a part of. But no one has more of a right to a class than anyone else. I met the requirements, I do the readings and I show up to the lectures just like everyone else. Who knows, maybe one day I’ll be one of the upperclassmen scaring off the first-years in an upper level class. For now, I’ll just stick to reading about morphology and trying my best on the homework.

As an African American Studies (AAS) concentrator, I often find myself diving into a bunch of rich literature I adore. My concentration is reading intensive. That means, unlike some STEM courses that may be centered around labs or problem sets, AAS is more about reading many sources or chapters to make connections and discuss! Nonetheless, seeing those 30-50 pages of reading for Monday doesn’t get any less daunting. Here are the ways that I approach my reading load. 

1. List them by due date, class and quantity: Being organized helps me know which readings I need to get ahead of and how much I am anticipating per day. 
2. Pick the readings I find most interesting: Although the assignment is more than expected or may have a later due date, I find that I can knock out the readings I think are most interesting quickly and then focus my attention on assignments with the most immediate due dates. 
3. Split up 50 pages into 25 and 25: I would read the first half one day and the second half another or I would read in the morning and then the evening. This gives me the feeling of reading less and not just staring into the sea of words for hours and hours. 
4. Read the assignments with fewer pages earlier: Tackling my readings with less pages first helps to get them out the way. 
5. Multitask: I like to save videos or podcasts for dinner or while I'm doing something passive like cleaning around the house. 
6. Start reading a few pages sooner rather than later: The thing about reading heavy classes is that you spend a lot of time outside of the classroom, you guessed it, reading. So just starting when you have a few free minutes can make a world of a difference.
7. Don’t worry about getting to everything: A common myth about reading heavy classes is that you need to read and understand everything. In my opinion, reading 30 out of the 50 pages while making connections and getting a clear understanding can be more fruitful during class discussions than reading all 50 pages and not understanding anything.

I prefer my reading-intensive concentration because I find myself very attuned to the power that books hold and the ways that they are essential to my knowledge! With reading, you’re not really looking for a particular answer. Your responses are shaped by your personal perspective and the same text can be read in so many different ways. When picking a concentration, I would suggest looking into what the workload would look like and ask questions such as “How much time would you spend a week reading for class or preparing the material?” Understanding if you’re not a big reader, like me, or need time to wrap your head around readings can be helpful to gauge your interest in a department. 

When I was applying to Princeton, I was curious to learn more about post-graduation outcomes and the types of careers Princeton students pursue. I hope this blog post sheds some light on what life after Princeton looks like.

Following graduation this upcoming May, I will be pursuing a Master’s in Management at The London School of Economics. I discovered an interest in entrepreneurship during my time at Princeton, so I decided to further my education and strengthen my quantitative skills before launching my career. I am very excited to move to London!

While attending a graduate program in management might be ‘unconventional’ for a history concentrator, there are many skills that I have acquired through my liberal arts education that are essential in the business world: the ability to write a compelling and effective argument, strong reading comprehension skills and a systemic understanding of human institutions.

My friends are pursuing a myriad of careers, all the way from software engineering at Amazon to independent journalism. I have also met many students that changed career interests or are undecided about what they want to do after Princeton and that is totally fine! The advantage of a Princeton education is that the world-renowned academics and extracurricular opportunities provide you with transferable skills that prepare you for the real world.

Princeton is known for its strong alumni network and I have met many alumni that have offered me mentorship and provided invaluable advice. One thing that stood out from my conversations with alumni is that being a Princetonian doesn’t end at graduation. With more than 95,000 Princeton alumni living all around the world, there are various opportunities and events to meet other Princetonians and nurture meaningful connections post-graduation. 

My message to prospective students is that no matter what you want to do in the future, a Princeton education will place you in a good position to fulfill your aspirations. Make sure to tap into the alumni network throughout your undergraduate career and learn from their experiences!

Ever wonder what sort of books are assigned at Princeton? Since I’m concentrating in English, I’ve definitely read my fair share of books here. From Jane Austen to Toni Morrison, Justin Torres to Susan Stewart, I’ve read a wide range. But with each new book comes a new perspective, a new understanding of what words can do, a new appreciation for how a story is pieced together, and a new reflection on my own life and the world around me. So without further ado, here are my top five best reads at Princeton (so far): 

Emma by Jane Austen

It was inevitable that Austen would make the list, because c’mon, we all know she’s a fiction queen. In a course called “Jane Austen: Then and Now”, we read all of Austen’s novels and paired them with contemporary adaptations. I’ll admit, it was a real toss up between Persuasion, Pride & Prejudice and Emma. I stand for the clear sense of female empowerment in Persuasion, I’m obsessed with the romance in Pride and Prejudice (and who doesn’t love Elizabeth Bennett?), and Emma inspired the movie, Clueless—enough said. But I ultimately chose Emma for much more than its contemporary icon. Out of all of Austen’s novels, Emma left this question lingering in my mind the most: to what extent does Austen critique social structures, and to what extent does she conform to them? While not much actually happens in the novel, you finish reading feeling as if it were action-packed. If you’d like to make a case for another of Austen’s novels, feel free to email me and we can chat :)

Good Talk by Mira Jacob

Since I took a course called “The Graphic Memoir”, it was also inevitable that at least one graphic memoir would appear on my list. Good Talk is about trying to explain a world you don’t fully understand to your kids, and in the process, making sense of it yourself. What’s especially interesting about this graphic memoir is the relationship between images and text. Pay close attention to the way that Jacob places the character cut-outs, background images, and text in conjunction with each other, and don’t miss out on the repeated images that occur throughout the memoir. I give it a 10/10, and would recommend it if you’re interested in conversations about race, politics, sexuality, love, privilege, self-growth, childhood and so much more.

The Myth of Seneca Falls: Memory and the Women’s Suffrage Movement, 1848-1898 by Lisa Tetrault

This book is a MUST-READ for literally anyone. It was one of the first books we read in the course “The Long 19th Amendment: Women and Voting Rights in the US”, and it stuck with me throughout the class and beyond. While Seneca Falls is widely celebrated as the “birthplace” of the women’s suffrage movement, Tetrault deconstructs this myth and reveals that the movement was already in the works by women who were glossed over in history. How has framing the birth of the women’s suffrage movement at Seneca Falls shaped women’s history? Who has this myth left out of the narrative, and why? What are the prolonged effects of the myth and who created it in the first place?

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

Speculative fiction has never felt so real, so urgent, so now, as it does in Ishiguro’s novel. I always find it so incredible when a science fiction/speculative fiction author can create an entirely different world—one with different rules, different challenges, different settings—and yet make that different world feel the same as ours. That’s exactly what Ishiguro accomplishes, and trust me, you will get attached to the characters in this book like no other. Amidst the clones and guardians and creativity culture is a story of what it means to be human: to love, to lose, and to persevere. I read this book in a course called “The Novel Since 2000”, and it was definitely my favorite on the reading list. 

The Girls of Slender Means by Muriel Spark

In the aftermath of World War II, Spark immerses readers into the May of Teck Club, where social hierarchies, body image, gossip, and arguments over a shared dress dominate behind closed doors. Spark integrates the societal and historical context beautifully with the daily interactions and goings-on at the May of Teck Club. This is the kind of book that you’re going to want to read and reread, again and again, because Spark packs so much into such a slim text. Trust me, if you take your time with this novel, you’ll discover double (or even triple) meanings to words and symbols, nuanced perspectives on characters and their decisions, and a constant debate about what Muriel Spark meant when she referred to the women at the May of Teck Club as “Girls of Slender Means”.

Hopefully this list gives you a glimpse into some of the reading assigned at Princeton. Ultimately, however, it’s not the books that make the course, it’s the thought-provoking conversations that these books inspire.

As part of the Bachelor of Arts (A.B.) degree, undergraduate students are required to demonstrate proficiency in a second language. This can be done by either testing out through AP tests or SAT subject tests (if applicable) or taking classes in that language for three of four semesters at Princeton. While I was already fluent in English and Spanish, I decided to take Italian my first-year and sophomore years. 

Language classes at Princeton are small and you get to know your professor—in my Italian 101 class, we were only nine students. Classes took place from Monday to Friday and I really enjoyed learning from my peers as we tackled learning a new language as a team. I was forced out of my comfort zone as the professor would randomly call on us to speak in Italian, sing a song or read a script. We also got to watch movies and learn about Italian culture once we learned the basics.

One of the highlights of pursuing Italian at Princeton was going to watch an Italian Opera at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City. We all took a bus to the city and all of the expenses were covered. I was amazed by the interior architecture of the opera house and felt grateful for the opportunity of going on this trip.

After a few semesters of Italian, I can proudly say that I can read and understand Italian. In fact, I recently visited my friend who goes to school in Milan and got to put my Italian skills to practice. Moreover, learning Italian allowed me to connect with my family ancestry, as my grandmother is from Italy. Learning Italian has opened my horizons in many ways.

If you are a prospective student worried about the language requirement, don’t sweat it! Language classes are one of the best at Princeton and you can choose from  Arabic, French, German, Hebrew or Wolof, to name a few.