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.

Like most first-year students, I was both nervous and excited to pack for college. I don’t think I have ever gone shopping as much as I did the summer before my first year. As my move-in date approached, endless questions ran through my mind. Did I have everything I needed? Would I leave essential items at home by accident? How many times would I have to run to Target or order off Amazon to make up for what I inevitably left off my packing list? 

Luckily, packing for Princeton gets easier every year as you get acclimated to campus life. Here’s a guide to some of the most helpful items to bring to Princeton.

Twin XL sheets

It’s important to make sure that your sheets fit the bed that Princeton provides. I have a couple different sets of sheets, and I try not to go too long without changing them.

Mattress topper and mattress protector

Beds in college are not always the most comfortable. Luckily, I got a memory foam mattress topper, and I don’t think I’ve ever slept better because of it. It’s so soft that I put it on my bed at home too! A mattress protector is also important because it helps keep the mattress clean and prevents allergens and bugs from getting into it.

School supplies

In high school, teachers would tell me what school supplies I needed to have, often before class even started. In college, it’s up to us to decide. I usually try to stock up on folders, binders and notebooks before the semester starts. That way I have all the basics, and I can pack my backpack accordingly.

Laptop

College students live on their laptops, so it’s important to make sure you have one that meets your needs. Princeton even has a program, called Student Computer Initiative (SCI), where you can buy a high-powered laptop at a discounted price. 

Laundry supplies

It isn’t fun, but college students have to do their own laundry. Make sure you have a laundry bag or hamper, and plenty of detergent. The good news: laundry is free at Princeton!

Decorations

The most fun part of moving into a college dorm is decorating it! I found a bunch of different wall art, from picture frames with inspiring quotes to a flowery wall tapestry. The decorations make my dorm feel more like home.

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If you are like me, you might be feeling a bit worried about what the dining experience is going to be like when you arrive at Princeton. As someone who is both vegan and can be just a “little” bit picky about the food I eat, I wondered if there was going to be anything at all I liked to eat in the dining hall and what I was going to do if there was nothing I could or wanted to eat.

Luckily, I quickly found that the dining experience at Princeton was very accommodating of all dietary restrictions and preferences. When it wasn’t, there were easy alternatives to make sure I still had yummy foods to keep myself nourished and happy during my time at Princeton. While nobody will claim that the dining halls are a Michelin three-star, gourmet experience, in a non-Covid year, the diversity of food offered in the dining halls was impressive. For first year students, there are five different dining halls to pick from, with each catering to different dietary restrictions and preferences in different ways. For example, while the Butler/First dining hall is known for its delicious vegan salad bar, the RoMa (Rocky/Mathey) dining hall consistently has vegan pizza. Moreover, the Center for Jewish Life dining hall, which serves all Kosher food, serves vegetarian-only food options three to four days a week.

Moreover, if you ever find yourself in a dining hall that is not quite able to accommodate your dietary requirements or tastes, the dining staff are open to suggestions and looking to help you find a meal that will meet your needs, even if it has to be specially prepared. In addition, if you are looking for a specific type of food that you want to be stocked in the dining hall long term, it is easy to request. Not every request can be met, but the fact that the staff is willing to listen matters. So, instead of being constantly worried about whether or not I would be able to eat in the dining hall or if this would get in the way of my making new friends, eating at Princeton has often been a place where I was able to have delicious, fun and social meals. 

Despite all of this, there were still times when I felt like the food in the dining hall didn’t quite work out or where I just preferred to grab a quick bite on my own. I recommend having some staples in your room — the fixings for peanut butter and jelly, some cereal and milk, maybe some protein bars. Especially if you are a picky eater, it is simple and easy to have some dietary “back-ups” to have on hand . . . just in case the Princeton food doesn’t taste quite right on a given day. Outside of this, there are also plenty of delicious restaurants in town if you are looking for a special treat. With this in mind, there is no reason at all to feel worried about the food at Princeton — it will be another great element of your four amazing years at the university.

Hi guys! Today I wanted to answer some common academic questions that pre-frosh might have. If you’re a prospective member of the Class of 2025, welcome, congrats and I hope this is helpful for you!

How competitive/collaborative are students?

Every class I’ve been in has been enhanced tenfold by the people I’ve met. In classes with problem sets, everyone is super willing to help each other - homework sessions actually become sort of fun when you’re working with your friends and classmates, and they go so much quicker too! I’ve also had numerous writing workshop classes where we discuss each other’s work.I always look forward to integrating my peers’ insights in my revisions. The students here are what make Princeton great.

What are first-year classes like?

Many, if not most, of Princeton’s classes are quite small. Every first-year student takes a writing seminar during their fall or spring semester, which have around a dozen students. Introductory classes tend to be the largest offered on campus, and can have over a hundred students. However, these classes almost always have weekly precepts led by faculty and teaching staff, which have at most around 20 students each. Many other classes, whether they be seminars or departmentals, have around 30 students at most. 

 Is it easy to talk to your professors?

Professors are super accessible! I’ve grabbed meals with both a professor I’ve spoken face to face with in a small seminar each week, as well as a professor whose 100-person lectures I really enjoyed. It's quick and easy to just email or drop by office hours and get to know your professors, both as scholars and people. 

How much work is it?

I get this question all the time, especially how many hours I work each day. I struggle to answer this sometimes because each day at Princeton really is different. While sometimes class assignments can pile up and you just have to settle down for a grind session in Firestone Library, I think finding a good work-life balance is definitely doable. For example, I spend hours each day chilling in the dining hall with my friends, wandering around campus on my bike, and playing pickup games of basketball and soccer. And when I do settle down to work, well, I’m often working alongside some wonderful people that make the process easier.   

In my very first semester at Princeton, I took a history seminar that sparked my interest.  It was about Princeton’s history and connection with slavery, and was being taught at a time when colleges and universities around the country were being asked to reckon with the ways in which the institutions of slavery had contributed or continue to contribute to their identities today.

The class itself was fascinating, however I want to discuss the part of the class that immediately felt the most intimidating — the reading! Before I came to college, everyone told me to be prepared for incredibly large workloads, including heavy amounts of reading. When making my college decisions, I noticed that Princeton courses, in particular, had very large reading requirements. This class was described as having 200+ pages of reading per week, which had me worried, but I decided to enroll anyway.

At first, I was overwhelmed. To make matters worse, the rest of the class, all juniors and seniors, seemed to take the workload in stride. Given all the time I was spending taking notes on the weekly readings, I started to wonder if I was really cut out for the Princeton course load.

It was only after I spoke to the other students that I learned I was approaching the workload all wrong. While Princeton courses, especially those in the social sciences, do tend to have heavy reading requirements (though 200 pages is really on the high end), part of being a Princeton student is figuring out how to engage with these sources effectively and efficiently. I developed four strategies for tackling the readings. Here’s what I learned:

1. How not to let heavy reading requirements deter me from taking a class or question whether I fit in at a place like Princeton. 
2. How to approach readings more thoughtfully, to focus on the most salient  points and make notes about those points instead of trying to crystalize and retain every single idea. 
3. How to do readings in a specific order, from less specific to more specific, was a useful way to better understand the connections between readings and to ensure I was understanding and retaining the key information. 
4. How to annotate and take notes more effectively, realizing that for me it was often better to read books on paper versus on the computer.

While my approach to reading more effectively developed gradually over my time at Princeton, I am grateful that I stuck with that original course, and that my classmates were so generous with their advice and tips. To all prospective Princeton students, I hope this post serves as a  reminder that while the adjustment to college can feel intimidating, and might even be difficult at times, it is manageable and that sometimes it just requires asking others for advice and making small adjustments in attitude and perspective.

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!

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!

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. 

I woke up to a canopy of snow. Still falling thick and heavy, it had landed gently on branches one by one till the entire ring of trees in the courtyard was a low-hanging forest cloud. 

Snow was scarce my first two years on campus. My first-year fall, it had come early and enthusiastic - I had snowball fights by lamplight and unexpected attacks leaving class at noon. But since then, the skies had been less forthright, and besides a light dusting that I enjoyed in Prospect Gardens in the January of my sophomore year, I missed the opportunity to see campus asleep and then vibrant in the snow.

This year, though, the snow is generous and constant. Snowmen rise and, imprecisely weighted, topple back to earth, where their redolent domes are hidden under a new skyfall. Steady groups make their way to Whitman hill, holding flattened cardboard and plastic lids and other makeshift sleds. 

Golden lamps and old stone walls married to moss and vine are well-suited to the snow. We take walks, following made footsteps where the snow is too deep. We are showered by snow from familiar branches and roofs. 

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We hope it stays, a little while.