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. 

One of the main reasons I chose to concentrate in the School of Public and International Affairs (SPIA) is the format of the junior papers (JPs). In one semester, juniors enroll in a research seminar, in which students learn quantitative and qualitative research methods and then write a research-based JP. In the other semester, juniors have a policy task force, which involves writing a JP that makes recommendations about the best ways to address important public policy problems affecting society today. As I was deciding which department to concentrate in, the policy task force excited me because it would allow me to gain practical skills in policy research and development. I just finished my task force and greatly learned and benefited from this experience. 

My task force was called Improving Health Care for Vulnerable Populations in the U.S. During the COVID-19 Pandemic and it was taught by Heather Howard, lecturer in SPIA and former Commissioner of the New Jersey Department of Health and Senior Services. One of the coolest parts of the task force is that they are often taught by people with real-world experience in the subject being studied. Professor Howard has an amazing breadth of knowledge and I learned so much from her. Our class only had nine students, so we all had the opportunity to get to know each other and contribute to class discussions.

It was fascinating to study the pandemic as it was unfolding in front of us. Each week, we talked about a different theme, ranging from racial disparities in health outcomes to vaccination strategies to maternal mortality. I was inspired by a discussion of the disproportionate impact the virus has had on people residing in long-term care facilities such as nursing homes. I wrote my JP on the importance of home and community-based services, which ensure that senior citizens and people with disabilities can receive support and assistance at home in a way that maximizes independence and prioritizes safety. I conducted research on how other states provide home and community-based services in order to make recommendations for the state of New Jersey.

In the last week of the semester, my classmates and I presented our recommendations to a group of stakeholders who work at the New Jersey Department of Health. It was incredible to be able to discuss our research findings with the people in charge of making decisions about the state’s health care system. They listened to what we had to say and will hopefully keep our research in mind going forward.

Because of my task force, I feel more comfortable researching and evaluating the best policy proposals to solve a problem. I plan to use these skills in my senior thesis and future career in policy and advocacy. This experience confirmed to me that I made the right choice in concentrating in SPIA.

Since the start of high school, I knew that I wanted to pursue a career in engineering and nobody could persuade me otherwise. I applied to Princeton with the sole notion that I would take mathematics and science courses and follow this linear path that would allow me to graduate with a degree in engineering. Many of my friends questioned why I chose Princeton instead of a STEM-oriented university. Yet as I sit here and look back at my first year of college, I realize that it is precisely Princeton’s emphasis on a liberal arts education that has enriched my learning experience through interdisciplinary lectures.

The liberal arts curriculum starts with the First-year Writing Seminar, which all first-year undergraduates are required to take. This intensive writing course embodies the ideals of the philosophy behind academia and scholarship: it teaches students how to think critically and analyze complex issues, skills that are a must for any discipline. As such, Princeton recognizes that our decision to concentrate in engineering or the humanities is just as important as preparing us to become society’s future leaders and researchers. This notion became apparent only after I reached out to a few alumni, a majority of which seemed to have ended up working in a discipline that had little association with their undergraduate concentration. I myself initially grappled with this conundrum as I wondered whether I would dedicate four years of my life toward Chemical and Biological Engineering (CBE), my prospective concentration, only to completely abandon all my work after college.

Interestingly enough, while I was working on a problem set for a CBE course, I came to the conclusion that it wasn’t exactly the mass balances and thermodynamics that attracted me to this concentration, but rather the problem solving aspects that it demanded and how it tied my love of mathematics to biomolecular science. Sure, the courses that I take will prepare me for a smooth transition into the workforce. Of greater significance is that Princeton’s liberal arts education will teach me to challenge preconceived hypotheses and theories and think creatively to develop my own. Thus, I now view engineering not simply as applications of science to the real world, but more so an interdisciplinary field characterized by an intersecting network of natural and social sciences, where clear writing and multilingualism foster scholarly communication, artforms in nature inspire innovation and history guides scientific morality and ethics. To be an engineer, we must understand the world around us, and only through a liberal arts education can we achieve such a well-rounded perspective.

Independent work is a defining part of the Princeton experience. As a junior, I write a Junior Paper (JP), which, for English concentrators, is a 25-30 page paper of my original research and argument. When it was announced that the semester would be virtual, I was initially nervous about how my JP would work. Would I have access to Firestone library resources? Would I have the virtual support from my JP adviser? Where would I even begin to start thinking about my topic? 

Luckily, the Department of English was more than prepared for virtual independent work. Every junior English concentrator gets assigned to a junior seminar, where we learn to engage with scholars, formulate an argument and close-read texts. The seminar was easily moved online to Zoom. Because there is a very small number of students in the course, we get to have in-depth, interesting conversations each week, and we really get to know each other. To practice for our JP, we submit three papers that each center on a different feature of English scholarly writing, and we also lead the discussion on a text once during the semester. 

English JP advisers are there to talk through your ideas every step of the way. I met with my JP adviser early on in the semester just to share some of the topics I was interested in, and then they pointed me towards various sources that may be helpful for my research. Not only are JP advisers ready to guide you, but other professors in the English department are as well. I’ve reached out to some of my English professors to discuss their research that relates to my topic, as well as just chat during Zoom office hours about my ideas.

Firestone Library also has many resources online for research. I’ve never yet encountered an issue when I needed to access something that wasn’t online, but Princeton librarians are also there to help, should students ever need access to something that they can’t find online. 

For my JP, I’ve decided to write on the role of unnamed female protagonists in literature. I’ll be comparing Zadie Smith’s "Swing Time", which has an unnamed female narrator, to Jane Austen’s "Emma", in which the heroine’s name is both the title of the text and the first word of the opening. As I’m also pursuing a certificate in Gender & Sexuality Studies, I’m interested in the questions: how do we interpret the literary choice to have an unnamed female protagonist: is it merely an implication of a lack of identity (as was previously argued by scholars), or might we center in on the female nameless protagonist, in particular, to understand the gendered implications of this choice? 

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I’m looking forward to exploring my topic further and continuing to have the virtual support that Princeton offers for independent work! 

This semester I am taking four live Zoom classes, two classes in my department, one for my certificate, and the last one for my Quantitative and Computational Reasoning graduation requirement. I generally start my classes at 11 a.m. and end at 3 p.m., with about two classes a day. As an African American Studies concentrator, a reading-based humanities concentration, I read A LOT of pages for class. I prefer to read throughout the day, so I’ll chop up my readings accordingly, but whatever I don’t get to, I let it be. I read everywhere around the house, but I like to type and take notes at my desk! Having a work space that I can walk away from helps me handle my college course load. On campus, we would definitely have time to go from class to class or walk to a friend’s room to study or hang out, so I like to carve out those times into my Zoom schedule as well. 

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In my classes with about 60-100 students, it's a little harder to participate, so I am usually more present mentally when we review material in small groups during precept. It feels about the same as my on-campus experience with large lectures, but seeing so many faces at once on Zoom can be a little intimidating. My smaller seminars on Zoom have given me a chance to talk more and ask questions during class that I would feel a little more hesitant to ask. I like the way that the virtual setting allows more space for questions with the chat and raise-your-hand features. As a result of these features, I think students are asking more questions during class rather than privately after, which helps me learn more about the material.

The most challenging part of the college experience this semester has been navigating my schedule and internship applications while being a first-generation, low-income and immigrant student. I make time to clean the house and wash dishes! I cook, sometimes during class, because I don’t get to be just a student at home. I must take up that responsibility as a young woman in an immigrant home because I choose to make that load lighter on my mom, but also because that's the expectation of a young woman in my culture. Being on campus alleviates that sometimes, but being home and managing all these parts of me has been pretty draining. 

I have had a lot on my plate, but I am trying my best to be present when I can and say no when I cannot as well. I ask for extensions, take some classes off when I’m very tired, and go to bed early. Saying no is a form of self-care in this college world. Be kind to yourself. Let all of who you are take up space because all of you will be taking up space in whatever institution you choose.

One unique aspect of Princeton’s undergraduate curriculum is the certificate program. It is an opportunity for students to venture out of their primary field of study and take courses in a myriad of interdisciplinary subjects. Although the certificate program might sound confusing at first, you can think about it as similar to minors offered at other universities. 

Most certificates entail taking around four to five classes in the subject in addition to completing some type of independent work. From African American Studies to Sustainable Energy, there will be at least one certificate that will fit your interests and supplement your undergraduate education. While I recommend looking into certificate programs, do know that they are not compulsory. Nonetheless, many students benefit from them, myself included.

As a history concentrator, I discovered an interest in Latin America so the first certificate I enrolled in was Latin American Studies. To fulfill the certificate requirements, I have to take four classes on Latin America, demonstrate language proficiency in either Spanish or Portuguese, and write a senior thesis with a focus on the region. My second certificate is in Entrepreneurship, for which I am taking five classes and completing a practicum during my senior year. The entrepreneurship classes are incredibly enriching because of the guest lectures from famous alumni and leaders in the industry, in addition to the hands-on assignments. 

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The certificate program is flexible and allows you to tailor your undergraduate education at Princeton. I know of friends that have supplemented their STEM concentration with humanities-oriented certificates and vice-versa. In my case, the two certificates I am pursuing have immensely expanded my critical thinking skills and have also influenced my career aspirations. When choosing your primary field of study, be assured that you can still acquire knowledge in other fields through the certificate program! 

To the newly admitted Class of 2024, congratulations! 

I remember being in your shoes, quite intimidated by the college selection process. I remember asking myself, will I fit in at Princeton? Will there be people like me? Can I handle the academic rigor? Despite my hesitations, choosing Princeton was one of the best decisions of my life. 

What I found appealing was Princeton’s focus on the liberal arts and world-renowned undergraduate education. The University gives you the flexibility of taking classes in a variety of subjects before officially declaring your concentration at the end of sophomore year. For me, this was crucial because I was undecided. I came in as a prospective math major, but after taking classes in different departments, I discovered an interest in archival research and joined the Department of History.

I also knew I wanted to learn from my peers, travel to different countries, and get access to enriching opportunities. From traveling to India with a geology class to interning in Israel at a high-tech startup, Princeton has provided me with memories and experiences that I will cherish for years to come. Best of all, these opportunities are fully covered financially! 

Another important factor was affordability. The financial aid program here is amazing. My parents were worried they wouldn’t be able to afford Princeton, but the financial aid award I received made it all possible. Throughout my years here, the financial aid office has supported me every step of the way. 

Princeton has truly become my home and I wouldn’t have it any other way!

A couple days after my admission to Princeton, I opened my mailbox to find a thick orange envelope. Inside were a series of pamphlets and flyers that would prepare me for my time at Princeton, discussing everything from student life to the Novogratz Bridge Year Program. After poring through those materials, and the University’s corresponding online resources, I came away with two key impressions. The first was that Princetonians really love the color orange (it’s true!). The second was that students really care about research. 

Even after looking online, I couldn’t truly picture what “research” might mean for a student like me. I knew I was interested in social sciences and the humanities, and I’d always imagined “researchers” wearing white coats and goggles at the National Institutes of Health (NIH).  It wasn’t until my writing seminar at Princeton — a mandatory class for first-year students that introduces a variety of research methods and principles — that I got a grasp of what academic research outside of the scientific disciplines might look like. Even then, as I was reading through and analyzing academic articles at a new, rigorous level, I wasn’t sure how I was ever going to come up with a topic to research myself. How was I, a public school kid from the suburbs, going to come up with an original research topic with academic merit?

I’ll let you in on a secret: it’s not as hard as you think. Every student at Princeton is required to produce a senior thesis as well as independent work during their junior year. What all that work has in common is that it represents an exploration of something each student is passionate about. As you declare your concentration (our word for major) as a sophomore and delve into your chosen field, you’ll discover with your professors that there are myriad questions left unanswered in your discipline’s literature. There is so much we don’t know! And there’s no way you won’t be curious about it. Many incoming students are under the misguided belief that their independent work has to be revolutionary somehow — that their findings have to be game-changers if they want to get an A or the respect of their professors. What they inevitably find, however, is that academic progress is oftentimes made up of minute contributions to larger questions. It’s bit by bit that many of society’s biggest questions are answered. It’s your job as a researcher to add another piece to the puzzle. 

Princeton is a community of student researchers. That really does include every student — no student has ever graduated without turning in a research project. And don’t worry, there’s no chance you’ll be the first. Research can seem daunting, especially to students in disciplines not typically associated with “research.” But it’s nowhere near as nerve-wracking as you think, and the curiosity you’ll develop as a Princeton student will leave you with many more leads than you could ever research. 

I’m a tour guide with Orange Key, Princeton’s student tour guide service. Other than “What is your most commonly asked question?” the question I am most frequently asked is about the different kinds of classes required for Princeton students. It makes sense: coming from high school, where courses for students are mostly pre-determined, many students are itching for the opportunity to take courses in subjects they’re passionate about. Oftentimes, students aren’t excited about a potential new slate of mandatory classes. 

My answer is always the same: there’s only one required class at Princeton, but even that is largely up to you. Every student has to take a Writing Seminar, a semester-long course that teaches students to formulate researchable questions in preparation for junior and senior independent work. Not every writing seminar is the same, however. After being assigned to either the fall or spring semester, students are sent a list of the different seminar options to choose from. Usually, these fall into clear interest areas: seminars offered this semester include “The Future of Food” and “Justice Beyond Borders.” The customizable nature of the writing seminar tailors even this required class to student interests.

Princeton’s set of distribution requirements also affects students’ course choices. These are different for students in the Bachelor of Arts (A.B.) and Bachelor of Science in Engineering (B.S.E.) programs. Students enrolled in A.B. programs — which I describe to my tour groups as “(A)nything (B)ut” Engineering — must take ten courses of their choosing across seven different broad ‘distributions,’ in addition to achieving proficiency in a foreign language. These distributions include categories like “Social Analysis,” which covers everything from psychology to politics to journalism. For B.S.E. students — our engineers — the situation is a bit different. In addition to general math and science courses relevant to their chosen disciplines, engineering students must take four classes among the non-quantitative distribution areas.

I tell my tour groups that I think Princeton’s distribution requirement system captures the best of both worlds. On one hand, it clearly frees you from the monotony of high school classes: with the exception of the customizable Writing Seminar, there’s nothing you have to take. I didn’t want to see math in college, and aside from a Politics-y statistics course, I haven’t! But the distribution requirements also push you out of your comfort zone: I’ve taken classes on everything from bridges to audio journalism (complete with an expenses-paid trip to Alabama and Mississippi) in fulfillment of my distribution requirements, and they’ve allowed me to enjoy disciplines I never dreamed I would.