I still don't know exactly what my concentration will be. When I applied to Princeton, I thought I was going to concentrate in the School of Public and International Affairs (SPIA). However, in the middle of my first semester, I started to have doubts. I began to seriously wonder if SPIA was the right path for me. A semester later and I am more unsure about my concentration than I have ever been. What contributes to my uncertainty is the fact that Princeton offers so many interesting opportunities that I am torn between so many departments, research and funding options. While I am still unsure about what my concentration will be, one thing is certain, I will write. A LOT!

I remember reading somewhere that Princeton is one of the universities that places emphasis on writing. This is one of the reasons why all students are required to produce a senior thesis before they graduate. This is also why all undergraduates are required to take a Writing Seminar, either in the fall or spring semester of their first year. Writing seminars are intended to introduce first-year students to academic writing. There are several seminars that students can rank before they are officially assigned to one. I attended mine, WRI 167/168: Justice Beyond Borders, in the fall. I remember one day, as we were discussing Kant's main claims in "Towards Perpetual Peace", a staff member walked into the room and introduced us to a wonderful resource: The Writing Center.

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Essentially, the Writing Center offers free 50-minute and sometimes 80-minute one-on-one appoinments to students in which consultants help them work on writing assignments, ranging from 3-page essays to 20-page research papers. Consultants are undergraduate students who are trained to provide guidance on writing assignments. Personally, I see the Writing Center as an accountability checker. I schedule my appointments days (even weeks) before the deadline for my essays. My thinking is this: if I have a writing consultation scheduled, then I need to have something written. There are even times when I don't have an essay to receive feedback on. Sometimes I only have rough outlines or just broad ideas. However, scheduling a consultation forces me to set time aside to at least think about my writing assignment and to get someone else’s perspective on my initial ideas.

The consultants that I work with always listen to me and ask questions that help refine my ideas and push them further. When there is really nothing to think about, they propose exercises that encourage reflection on specific parts of my essay. Wherever you are in the writing process, they've got you! That's the beauty of the Writing Center. In fact, the consultations I found most useful were the ones where I didn't even have a draft. It is important to note that while no two consultants are the same, at the end of every appointment, I always feel ready to embark on my next step in the writing process.

I see the Writing Center as a group of students who not only listen to me talk about my ideas, but also help to formulate them into words, and ultimately in a "coherent, sensitively argued and well-written essay" (by the way, these are the comments that one of my teachers made on an essay workshopped by the Writing Center. It really works guys!)

This is just my experince with The Writing Center and while others may have a different take, I can say that it has been a helpful tool for me and it may be helpful to you as well. And who knows, maybe I will be a Writing Consultant by the time you come to Princeton and I will consult your essay!

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

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

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

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

Taking difficult courses in one of the world’s most prestigious universities, topped with moving to a new and different country seemed daunting at first. Coming from Poland, I didn’t know if my academic preparation was enough to thrive in a Princeton classroom and whether I’d fit well in the American college social life. As these thoughts began to fill my mind when I entered the walls of the beautiful Princeton campus, I remembered a piece of advice that has helped me succeed throughout my life: don’t be afraid to ask for help. I never would have thought that this piece of advice could make such a difference in my transition to college. 

As I progressed through my first fall semester, I quickly realized how many resources Princeton offers when you’re seeking advice. When I was choosing courses or became worried about my progress in them, I spoke to my wonderful academic adviser, Gene Grossman, a professor in the Department of Economics and Princeton School of Public and International Affairs who always knew exactly how to put me on the right track by both challenging me with exciting course choices and encouraging me to strike a work-life balance. Although he knew I was a prospective economics concentrator, he encouraged me to take Freshman Seminars which seemed to be very loosely connected with my concentration (one of which focused on the importance of failure in life, while the other on the constitutional debate over freedom of speech). These courses allowed me to discover areas of knowledge I never explored before and provided a healthy break from learning about economic consumption patterns and supply & demand. 

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When I found my days getting disorganized and unproductive, I scheduled mentoring sessions with the McGraw Academic Life & Learning Consultants who helped me organize my academic life. When I feared I’d never secure a summer internship after my first year I spoke to the advisers at the Center for Career Development who helped me polish my resume and land an incredible summer opportunity. With their support, I had a wonderful experience working for Magma Partners during my first-year summer: a venture capital investment fund that focused on supporting fintech and insurtech startups in Latin America. 

Finally, when I worried about adjusting to life in the United States I found a robust community at the Davis International Center. The Davis IC helped me effectively transition to living in a new culture. It allowed me to surround myself with people who found the same things about the United States to be different from their home countries and Davis IC empowered us to adapt to them together. I can certainly say that although Princeton has been a challenging experience, I was able to navigate through it well, without being afraid of failure. I proudly wear orange and black as I know that here I’m always surrounded by the right people who will help me succeed no matter what obstacle I encounter.

One aspect of the college transition process that I was worried about was how the workload and workflow would be different from high school. For my science and math courses in high school, I generally had daily textbook exercises to complete before school the next day. In college, instead of textbook exercises assigned every day, I usually have one problem set (p-set) per week per STEM course. A p-set is a series of problems of varying difficulty that you complete and hand in to be graded, and the questions are based on the material covered in class that week.

The number of p-set courses you take in a semester depends on your concentration, and most students try to strike a balance between p-set courses, writing courses as well as courses that don't fall into either category (like art courses). This semester, for instance, I have three p-set courses, one art course and my independent study.

My first p-set course at Princeton was MAT202 Linear Algebra. I completed the first few p-sets on my own, but I soon found a study friend with whom I could collaborate. Working with someone else really helped me grasp the material and learn better, and since then I've always made sure to find my study buddies early on in my p-set courses. This level of collaboration is what I've found to be the biggest difference between high school homework and college homework.

P-sets are designed to be challenging, and it often takes a group to figure out the toughest questions. When I'm stuck, someone else can explain how they approached the question, and at other times I'm the one explaining my method or reasoning. Additionally, it's simply more pleasant and rewarding to work on something and come to a conclusion with a group than completely solo. To give you a sense of what completing a p-set is like, I've outlined the general steps I take for each of my weekly p-sets:

1. Read and attempt

Before we start covering the material in class, I like to read the textbook section and give the p-set a first try on my own. I can usually figure out the easier questions, but it's unlikely I'll be able to complete everything on this first pass.

2. Go to lecture and precept

During the week I'll go to the lectures and precepts (small group problem solving sessions), which will often help clarify what I didn't fully understand from the reading. Sometimes a slide in lecture will show me how to approach a question I couldn't figure out before, so I can go back and try it again.

3. Check with a friend

Once I've given all the problems a try, I'll meet up with friends from the class who have also attempted the p-set and we'll compare our answers. When we have the same answer, we'll feel pretty confident that we're right. When we have different answers, we'll each explain what we did and try to understand how the other person solved it.

4. Go to office hours

For the toughest questions that stump my entire study group, or for questions that we just can't agree on, we'll go to the office hours of the professor or the assistant instructor (AI) or a teaching assistant (TA). Office hours are designated times outside of class  to give students the opportunity to ask questions, receive clarification, or just to catch up with the professor or instructor. In my experience, we'll explain our reasoning and thoughts to the AI, who will help clarify where our approach is correct and where we're missing something. The AIs won't tell you how to solve a problem, but they'll often drop helpful hints.

5. Submit!

When I agree with my study group on all the questions, I'll finally submit my pset! Most submissions are through Canvas, so I'll scan and upload my work.

6. View feedback

Wait, submission wasn't the last step? In a few weeks, I'll get back my graded p-set. This feedback is a great resource for studying for exams so that I don't make the same mistakes.

Towards the end of every semester, students must answer the age-old question: what classes do I want to take next semester? While course selection seems like an impossible task when you haven’t even finished the current semester’s courses yet, this is a delicate art that all Princeton students come to master. So, I’d like to present you with a guide on how to select your courses.

Choose Classes Based on Your Concentration

This is a great way to get started on filling up your four- or five-course semester. Every concentration has its own set of course requirements tailored to students declaring that area of study. In fact, most departments even provide a sample curriculum or a general path to graduation to help students decide how to split up course loads. Granted, not every first-year student is certain of their concentration upon arriving on campus, but you should take the first two semesters as an opportunity to explore concentrations you might have not considered. Remember that Princeton allows a lot of leeway when it comes to choosing a concentration, so don’t feel like you’re wasting your time if you end up taking a class that’s not the best fit for you. Instead, you are one step closer to discovering your field of interest!

Choose Classes that Sound Exciting to You

I cannot stress this enough! While many of your classes will be taken for your concentration, do not miss out on the unique courses offered here! From “Princeton University Steel Band” to “Yaass Queen: Gay Men, Straight Women, and the Literature, Art, and Film of Hagdom,” there is always some course that attracts the attention of each student. Don’t worry if the class seems out of your comfort zone or intellectually demanding -- first of all, most courses at Princeton are, but more importantly, if you are motivated by your fascination, you will naturally excel in the course. Also, since not every course boasts a catchy title, I encourage you to read all the course descriptions as well to give each course a chance. 

Be Aware of Your Distribution Requirements

Students pursuing a Bachelor of Arts (A.B.) must fulfill general education requirements in addition to taking classes for their concentration. This includes one semester of a writing seminar, demonstrated proficiency in one foreign language, and an assortment of distribution requirements that will broaden a student’s level of knowledge. Overall, these courses may take up a significant amount of space in your schedule, so be sure to spread them out over your four years.

For most students intending on pursuing a Bachelor of Science in Engineering (B.S.E), you will have to take certain math, science and computing courses to prepare you for advanced engineering courses. Your adviser will recommend that you tackle introductory courses first so that you can fulfill most of the prerequisites early on in your Princeton career. And, you will still have room for humanities and social science electives!

Use Online Resources

Princeton’s registrar website has a lot of information and it may feel overwhelming to figure out how to create a balanced schedule for the semester. I recommend that you take advantage of these online resources carefully crafted by Princeton alumni who have faced the same challenges:

• Princeton Courses: This website allows you to explore course information, ratings and evaluations of courses and professors across different semesters. You can even look up courses by concentration and distribution requirement.
• Principedia: Once you have found some classes you might be interested in, you could head over to Principedia to read course analyses written by students who have taken these courses before to get a better idea of what to expect.
• ReCal: This course-selection tool helps you visualize your course schedule in a weekly calendar format. It is incredibly useful to ensure that none of your courses conflict with each other and that you have allocated sufficient time to eat lunch between classes.
• TigerPath: Finally, this is a tool for planning out your four-year course schedules. Especially if you are ambitiously pursuing multiple certificates or simply want to be well-organized, TigerPath can keep track of all courses you plan to take to ensure that you fulfill all of your concentration requirements.

That’s all I have! If you have any other questions about course selection, please feel free to reach out to me.

One of the most important milestones of the Princeton undergraduate experience is the senior thesis. Almost all departments require a thesis or some type of independent work. Writing a total of 28,000 words and 110 pages was definitely challenging, but extremely rewarding. I was able to embark on my own research project, choose a topic I was passionate about and put into practice all of the historical methods I had learned in class.

My senior thesis, ““Americanos Todos”: Redefining U.S. Latino and Latina Identity during the Second World War”, investigates the wartime experiences of Latinos who served in both the homefront and battlefront during World War II. Despite posing significant contributions to the war, Latinos remain neglected in dominant narratives of WWII. My work attempts to address this historical silencing and uncover the Latino wartime experience. I ultimately argue that the war influenced the emergence of new forms of identity by confounding what it meant to be “Latino” and “American” and catalyzed movements for inclusion that formed a Latino civil rights consciousness.

My research was based primarily on 47 interviews of Latinos and Latinas who participated in the war. Listening to their wartime experiences and how they championed sacrifice and patriotism despite encountering discrimination was extremely inspiring. They were constantly treated as second-class citizens and had to fight for their own inclusion and future in the country, motifs that resonate in modern discussions over Latino immigration. 

The overall process of crafting my own arguments and contributing to the historiography really helped strengthen my writing and critical thinking skills. Moreover, turning in this thesis, the longest research project I have worked on, demonstrated that I could do anything I set my mind to. There were many times that I was stuck with my topic or didn’t know how to approach the primary source, but my adviser was always extremely supportive. Everyone is paired with an adviser for the thesis and my adviser was extremely generous with her time and provided instrumental feedback.

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For prospective students, don't be afraid of the senior thesis! I know it seems daunting but Princeton prepares you and provides you with all of the resources and support you need to succeed. All of the papers I had written in other classes and previous independent work played a huge role in helping me navigate and complete my senior thesis. Looking back on my undergraduate career, writing my senior thesis is probably my proudest accomplishment.

It is quite easy to get overwhelmed and honestly swallowed by deadlines, due dates and syllabi at any institution. Making time to reflect or time to breathe is such an important part of my Princeton journey. Journaling is a part of my Princeton process and I would say that it's just as gratifying as turning in an assignment. Through journaling, I’ve been able to grow not just as a person but also as an academic!

Personal Growth

My journal entries sometimes follow a prompt that, for example, asks how many cups of water I’ve had or if I’ve complimented someone or myself today. Other times I can write freely and just tackle different parts of my day or week. This time of reflection allows me to decompress after a week full of good times, material and growth. I find that when I make time to journal at the end of a week, I am more mentally able to take on the next week because I've reflected on some challenges from the prior week. This reflection can sometimes lead to more confusion, resolution or even something to focus on as the weeks progress. But nonetheless I continue to grow and develop!

Academic Advantage

Journaling has even helped me in my junior paper process. An adviser recommended I journal through my reactions to texts or relevant social events that relate to my junior paper but aren’t necessarily important enough to include. These reflections allow me the space to just write without the pressure to tailor my words to sound more academic. With my ideas fleshed out and in conversation with current events, I can then approach my academic writing with a clearer path. 

Journaling, to me, is a way that I clear my head or make room for other thoughts. What ways do you see yourself decompressing after an eventful week?  I encourage you to find something that allows you to express yourself freely and authentically. I recommend doing something that you can do with others, by yourself, everyday or every week!

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.

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!

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.