Sophomoric

While the first year at Princeton, for most, is characterized by exploration (and, understandably, confusion, disorientation and hyperactivity), sophomore year at Princeton revolves around decision.

As a rosy-eyed first-year student, I indulged every whim and inkling of curiosity, exploring the extensive course catalogue with rampant curiosity and enrolling in courses with little rhyme, reason or regard for their “utility. ” I read every single email advertising opportunities on campus and applied to or joined every group or activity I was even vaguely curious about. I immersed myself in my coursework with genuine, focused attention and passion for my courses’ subject matter. I had fun, I followed my interests, and I didn’t overthink my decisions. With the ability to discover, to explore and to take advantage of every academic, social and cultural opportunity, I zigzagged through my first year at Princeton taking full advantage of the fact that I WAS AT PRINCETON.

Plasticity describes the ability and propensity of a solid to undergo changes under pressure. It describes the ability to be shaped, to change and to respond. I appreciated my firstyear for the enormous value I discovered in spontaneity, in curiosity and in plasticity.

As a sophomore, however, the pattern of my academic and social pursuits, was disorientingly measured by the quick succession of decisional junctures I had to pass through. My nomadic and restive model of decision-making as a first-year was quickly replaced by the jolted motions of my constant pattern of decision and indecision, and I experienced what is frequently called “the Sophomore Slump.” Every decision was daunting, and I was caught in a muddle of confusion and doubt over what I wanted to study and over how I wanted to dedicate my time and energy at Princeton.

As a sophomore, you will confront several significant social and academic decisions. In early spring, you will have the opportunity to join and eating club or co-op (or not) and by the end of spring semester, as an A.B. degree student, you will be required to select your concentration. (Students pursuing a B.S.E. degree select their concentration spring semester first year.) These decisions, significant for some and unremarkable for others, have the potential to shape the trajectory of your time at Princeton.

Thankfully, I navigated favorably through these decisions, finishing the academic year happily situated in a social community and an academic department where I feel supported and welcomed. I was the happiest I have ever been at Princeton during my spring semester, and as I gained clarity in my decisions, I grew confident in those choices, finding joy in my ability to find new opportunities to indulge in my curiosity again. The quick succession of these decisions served as a harsh awakening to the advent of the midpoint in my Princeton career, but instead of catalyzing crisis and doubt, it reinvigorated my absolute zeal and enthusiasm for Princeton and for the opportunities that are available to me here.

One for the Books

Most children’s first word is “mama”; mine was “book.” In preschool, as other kids scampered around Toys "R" Us, I devoured the shelves of Barnes & Noble. Some go weak in the knees at the scent of chocolate lava cake, but the new book smell has always been my aroma of choice.

Ever since I was a little girl, I’ve dreamed of working in the publishing world. And so, standing in the entryway of Princeton’s Career Services building at last fall's Communications & Media Meetup, I was rendered a child once more. Somewhere in the crowd, I knew, was a representative from the book publisher Simon & Schuster. Straightening my nametag, I navigated my way across the room until I found myself standing before the Simon & Schuster booth.

“Welcome! You’re my first visitor!”

Later that evening, I emailed the Simon & Schuster representative, thanking her for such a fantastic conversation and mentioning that I couldn’t wait to apply to her company’s winter internship program. A few minutes later, my inbox dinged.

“Let me slip a little note along to HR…”

One week later, I was sitting in an office in midtown Manhattan, interviewing for an editorial position with Simon & Schuster.

I didn’t wind up getting the internship that day. Instead, I walked away with something even more valuable. Midway through our conversation, my interviewer cocked her head and asked me, “Have you ever considered becoming a literary agent?”

I hadn’t. In fact, I had never even heard of the job before. And so, later that evening, I typed the words “literary agent” into Google for the first time. With childlike wonder, I watched as my laptop conjured up descriptions of a dream job I hadn't known existed.

Minutes later, I was scouring the web for internships once more.

It’s now been almost a year since my Simon & Schuster interview, and I just completed my third literary agency internship. Like the others before it, this internship provided me with endless inspiration and insight. But—at its completion—it also gave me one more thing.

A job offer.

Academic Playground

I like to refer to Princeton as “an academic playground.” Within the confines of the “Orange Bubble,” my responsibilities and obligations are largely limited to my academics and extracurricular interests. I am blessed to be at a point in my life where even if I am rushed, frantic and busy every moment of the day, this sense of ordered chaos only exists because I am doing so many things that I am immensely passionate about.

Princeton is my academic playground because I am unbound by the things that I can learn, the places I can go and the professors that I can meet. My favorite days in the academic year are the days that course offerings are released. On those days, regardless of my coursework or responsibilities, I am immediately caught up in the wild fervor of reading and examining every class that sparks my interest. Princeton offers hundreds of courses each semester and I am often paralyzed in my decision-making.

I have yet to finalize my course selection for next fall, but I suspect that by the end of the year and certainly by the end of summer, my interests will have shifted. For now, here are some of the courses that have made my short list:

POL 388: "Causes of War" with Professor Gary J. Bass

One of my certificate programs, the History and Practice of Diplomacy, focuses on the links between diplomacy and war-making. I am currently taking a course, "Grand Strategy," and am interested in studying the history of war through a different lens.

POL 345/SOC 305: "Introduction to Quantitative Social Science" with Professors Marc Ratkovic and Matthew J. Salganik

A course required for my major and one of my distribution requirements.

HIS 425: "The History of Political Propaganda from the French Revolution to Vladimir Putin" with Professor Igor Khristoforov

After several weeks working on a project involving political posters from the first revolution in Russia, I am interested in exploring the theme of propaganda more thoroughly.

HIS 383: "The United States, 1920-1974" with Professor Kevin M. Kruse

This course consistently receives great reviews, several of my friends have recommended it and I love U.S. history.

JRN 441:"The McGraw Seminar in Writing - The Art of the Profile" with Visiting Lecturer Rebecca Mead

Several of my close friends have raved about their experiences with journalism courses here. Rebecca Mead is a staff writer at The New Yorker.

ART 272: "Rage against the Machine: Art and Politics in America" with Professor Rachael Z. DeLue

I took a class with Professor DeLue in my first-year spring, but haven't had the chance to take another course in the Department of Art History since.

ITA 303: "Dante's 'Inferno'" with Professor Simone Marchesi

I may or may not have specifically started taking Italian last fall specifically so that I could take this course.

Engineering + Art = Transformations

This semester, I’m enrolled in "Science and Technology Council (STC) 209: Transformations in Engineering and the Arts," and it might be my favorite class I’ve taken at Princeton.

The goal of the couse is to merge the creative processes of engineering and the arts to explore designing and making from both perspectives. The course is organized around four modules: visuals, sound, structure and movement. In each class, we learn how to use relevant tools, such as software, hardware and other materials, to solve mini-challenges in small groups.

I love the class because we get to collaborate and MAKE something every week, whether we’re stress-testing inverted hanging plaster arches or building dynamic light-sensitive sculptures.

Our beautiful butterfly we made for a mini-challenge.

My favorite day was during the Movement module, when Rebecca Lazier, a professor from the dance department, taught us excerpts from her piece “There Might Be Others.” We then had fun making our own collaborative movement piece.

We’ve also taken field trips to New York City to visit two of the coolest organizations in existence: Hypersonic and the Elizabeth Streb Extreme Action Company.

Hypersonic is a small collection of mechanical engineers who make beautiful kinetic sculptures.

Elizabeth Streb Extreme Action Company is a troupe of “action heroes” that challenges themselves in experimental dance and physical feats, such as attempting to fly!

Aside from field trips and access to all kinds of technology, including motion capture, 3D printing and all the wires and Arduinos you could ever want, the most valuable resources of the class have been both the students and the faculty. Everyone comes from such different backgrounds in engineering and the arts building all types of work, such as bridges, choreography, robots, musical software and light design. It makes the experimental, interdisciplinary nature of the course a rich, educational experience.

To conclude the class, our final project is to make something in small groups along the theme of “Transformations” by visualizing sound or translating color to touch. We’re still in the planning stages, but I can’t wait to tell you about it when we’re done!

Our Favorite Classes

The bloggers share their favorite classes they've taken at Princeton!

Intellectual Roots

I owe my intellectual curiosity to my parents, who patiently waited as I waded through books in the now-defunct Borders bookstore that I considered my own.

I owe my intellectual curiosity to my fourth grade teacher, Mrs. Potter, who encouraged (and required) each of us to engage in “Super Quiet Uninterrupted Reading Time,” (affectionately called “SQUIRT”) every single day.

I owe my intellectual curiosity to Homer's "The Odyssey." I read it for the first time in 9th grade and have read it four times since.

I owe my intellectual curiosity to Gabriel García Márquez and "One Hundred Years of Solitude." It is a book that transformed my values and challenged my perceptions. I read it every year, and it changes me every time I read it.

I owe my intellectual curiosity to Leo Tolstoy — "Anna Karenina" and "War and Peace" were my solace in the spring semester of my senior year in high school.

I owe my intellectual curiosity to my home — Santa Fe, New Mexico. There, I saw so many different remnants of history and culture and diversity. There, I saw socioeconomic inequality, an ever-growing achievement gap and intolerance. Even living thousands of miles away, Santa Fe continues to ground me and remind me how I should understand my values.

I owe my intellectual curiosity to “Ethics and Public Policy,” taught by Professor Stephen Macedo, which challenged me to confront entirely unfamiliar questions and decisions. It made me uncomfortable; it made me feel nervous, and it made me grow, adapt and learn.

I owe my intellectual curiosity to the Humanities Sequence, a double-credit intensive survey course of the Western cannon, which introduced me to a brief glimpse of the expansive oeuvre of Western literature. I saw passion in every professor who taught the course. I saw passion in every student who gladly read 26 books each semester.

I owe my intellectual curiosity to “American Realism and the Perils of Painting” with Professor Rachael DeLue, where I was exposed to bodies of knowledge and conceptual approaches to questions completely new to me.

I owe my intellectual curiosity to Professor Christian Wildberg and to Athens, Greece, where I participated in a PIIRS Princeton Global Seminar. Our sole obligation was to learn and observe and question.

I owe my intellectual curiosity to "Constitutional Interpretation." I toiled and groaned as I carried my heavy law-school-like textbook like a security blanket. I cried in frustration when I received poor grades on pieces of work to which I had dedicated immense time, energy and heart, and I called my dad in triumph to discuss good feedback on one of my last assignments. My dad congratulated me, and I told him I will not be going to law school.

I owe my intellectual curiosity to the students that I teach as an English as a Second Language (ESL) tutor. Our students dedicate the time to come to class every week in order to improve their grasp of a language and a culture that so often declares that they are unwelcome. Every week, I am humbled by their incredible ambition and genuine care.

I owe my intellectual curiosity to Professor Dennis Feeney and Professor Alberto Rigolio, who guided me, along with a group of twelve peers to Pompei and Rome in pursuit of knowledge and truth. (I also owe my intellectual curiosity to my 9th grade World History teacher, Coco Rae, who introduced me to the Roman world.)

I owe my intellectual curiosity to the courses that I’ve loved, to those that I’ve abhorred and to those that have challenged my knowledge, values,and beliefs. I owe my intellectual curiosity to the teachers and professors who helped implant and foster pieces of knowledge in me, to the teachers and professors that I could not communicate with effectively and to the professors that I hope to get to know.

I owe my intellectual curiosity, in many ways, to Princeton.

What's It Like Being a COS Major?

To answer the most frequently asked question I get from prospective students: It's super cool!

Basically, being a Computer Science (COS) major means that I have to take eight departmental classes, which are COS classes that are 300-level or higher. COS courses are typically lecture-style classes, and the coursework involves programming assignments, problem sets and final projects. There's no one course that all COS majors are required to take, and it's nice having so many options for classes. (See listing of COS classes here.)

Because I'm pursing an A.B. degree (as opposed to B.S.E. - read about the differences here), I have to do four semesters of independent work, which means I get to work on projects of my choosing, learn about whatever I want to learn about, and then write a report about it. For my junior fall, I wanted to learn how to make a mobile app, so I built an Android app that uses geofencing to deliver push notifications about public events happening in nearby parks. In my junior spring, I wanted to brush up on my web development skills, so I made a website that made URLs human-readable and then conducted a user study. For my senior year, I wanted to engage more with people, so I'm interviewing people and writing my thesis about it! If you're curious, my thesis is about smart homes, privacy and the Internet of Things. :)

Since declaring COS as my major sophomore spring, I've taken two COS classes each semester, plus independent work. About half of my studies are dedicated to COS, and the other half is filled with whatever else I want to study--English, French, Chinese, dance, music and anything that strikes my fancy to round out my liberal arts education.

The reading list for ENG 369: Contemporary Science Fiction.

Additionally, I'm super grateful for the fact that being a COS major has, quite literally, taken me places: I've gotten to work in San Francisco and Seattle the past two summers, and I spent my junior spring studying abroad at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. This spring break, I also got to travel to Berlin for the Fung Global Forum: "Can Liberty Survive a Digital Age?"

I'm so happy to be a Computer Science major and have certainly enjoyed my Princeton academic experience. Hopefully you've gotten a good taste of what it's like to be a Computer Science major here at Princeton, as well!

The Pursuit of Passion

Last spring, midway through the second lecture of an introductory molecular biology course, I found myself fighting in vain to stifle a smile.

No, I had not just been struck by the sudden revelation that my life’s purpose was to don a lab coat and map genomes (as an English major, the only lab you’ll ever find me mapping my way back to is that of a man named Victor Frankenstein). In all honesty, I hadn’t anticipated enjoying MOL 101. Yet here I was, grinning from ear to ear—all thanks to the passion that filled the stage before me.

There, in front of a class of 50 students, was my professor—white mustache wiggling, eyes gleaming behind his glasses—literally bouncing in his soles while describing the function of DNA ligase.

Later that night, I typed my professor’s name into Google’s search bar. A snippet from Wikipedia immediately appeared in the screen’s upper right-hand corner, presenting a life condensed into a 2.5 x 5 inch box.

He is almost 70 years old.

He is a Nobel Laureate.

And yet, after 15 years of teaching introductory molecular biology, he still gets giddy when introducing enzymes to a room full of college students. In that moment, I told myself with absolute certainty: If I’m anything like him when I’m older, I’ll have done something right.

I love watching people fall in love with education. Hearing a chemistry concentrator describe protein crystallization as “art” and a dancer call ballet her “science.” Catching children staying up late to read “just one more chapter” by flashlight. Watching strangers pore over books on every topic from Faraday to crème brûlée, Mozart to modern art, Alaskan fly-fishing to Musca domestica, your common housefly.

As someone who has always had a case of unshakeable curiosity, there is nothing better than greeting a new day with the knowledge that I will learn something—anything—new before sundown. Waking up is easy when you’re eager to get out and discover more about the earth beneath your feet. I would never exchange this gift of education.

I love the shoes I’m in.

Do It For the Data

This semester, I am studying abroad in Panama as part of the Ecology and Evolutionary Biology (EEB) department. This program is wonderful in that it is designed specifically for EEB students at Princeton. I don’t have to worry about credits transferring, figuring out travel logistics, and nearly all of my classes count as departmental. However, the best part of this experience is that I am learning what it means to do real scientific research. Our first class, was about tropical ecology. For this class, we went into the rainforest every day and collected data for an independent project that we designed. At first it was quite daunting. How was I going to come up with a project that would be intriguing but also doable in a short time frame? I had never done anything like this before and didn’t have a clue as to where to begin. However, after some guidance from our wonderful professor and TA, I figured things out and came up with a really cool experiment.

For my project, I looked at something called the resource concentration hypothesis. This hypothesis predicts that with greater resource abundance (in my case more flowers on a plant), the greater the rate of insect visitation. To determine if the rainforests in Panama supported this idea, I sat in front of flowers all day and counted the number of insects that visited them. It was long and oftentimes hard (especially when there were bugs crawling all over me), but the occasional monkey and sloth sightings always kept me entertained and in high spirits.

After collecting data in the field, I went back to the lab and analyzed my results. Compared to other classes at Princeton where I’ve done statistical analysis on data sets professors have provided me, for the first time, I did analysis on my own research. It was really exciting, and it gave me a chance to see how complicated research actually is.

Since I am considering graduate school after graduating from Princeton, this was a wonderful opportunity to get a taste for what the research life is like. Plus, the hands-on field experience taught me so much more than I ever thought possible in just a few weeks.

Whether biology is your thing or not, Princeton has many great study abroad opportunities. Spending time in a foreign country and doing non-traditional schooling is an incredible opportunity that I believe everyone should take advantage of.

Club Spotlight: Conservation Society

One of Princeton’s newest clubs is the Conservation Society. The club is made up of students who are passionate about making a large difference in protecting the planet. It is involved with various projects including summer internship opportunities, bringing speakers to campus, organizing nature hikes, and most importantly, encouraging students to think about how we can work towards greater conservation of the animals and plants on this earth.

So far, the club has seen great success. In October, we held a conservation fair where more than 200 students attended. Various club members had posters highlighting some of the unique volunteer opportunities available for students. These included Projects Abroad, Round River, the National Parks Service, and even working at the Southern African Foundation for the Conservation of Coastal Birds (SANCCOB), a penguin rehabilitation center (see my blog about penguins here.) In December, the club brought in a speaker from the New Jersey Marine Mammal Stranding Center to give a lecture about the marine mammals in the New Jersey area. Students learned what they can do to help these animals and what to do if they ever see a stranded animal. Most recently, the club partnered with the BBC Network to have a special prescreening of "Planet Earth II" at the Princeton Garden Theatre and a moderating a talk with the CEO of the World Wildlife Foundation.

In this day and age, where our environment is changing every minute, promoting conservation efforts is critical to improving our future world. Noah Mihan '19, club president, describes the impetus behind starting the Conservation Society: “When my friends and I came to Princeton, we searched so hard for a club that would focus on large-scale conservation, one that would send students on research trips in the summer, repair trails and raise awareness about conserving the massive biodiversity on our planet. We never found one. So we decided to, well, just make our own!”

The club is always growing and improving. In the near future, the Conservation Society hopes to host a talk on climate change, send students on Princeton-funded research trips to Africa and do a club-wide trip to the American Prairie Reserve in Montana.

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