Category: Campus

Princeton ®

The way it came to me was in a letter. I think a lot of people got them, but I don’t know. It was from Dean Rapelye or maybe Malkiel, and it said something like “you are one of the particularly outstanding students admitted” and to “please consider coming to Princeton.”

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Class ‘N’ Titles

The two most shameless course titles at Princeton are NES 362 “Blood, Sex, and Oil: The Caucasus,” and FRS 117 “Eye of the Tiger: Reading Buildings.” They blatantly, even desperately, ask for attention.

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Pitching Princeton

A few months ago, a prospective student from my high school (let’s call her “Susan”) visited Princeton. I did not know her—her interests, her talents, her social proclivities—and yet I found myself on the verge of launching into a speech about how Princeton is the best school—probably in the world—and how she would in all likelihood be denying herself the possibility of self-transcendence if she applied elsewhere early action.

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100 Things to Do Before Coming to Princeton

One million push-ups. Read every book ever. Join a frat. Build a fort. Get a bold new haircut. Set fire to the rain. Lose 15-60 pounds. Lose appendix. Lose virginity. Make love. Make two people cry in one night. Show every … Read More

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Drunk Eating Club

Damien* is a frat bro, infamous on the Princeton campus for his trust fund and sexual aggression, and he has something to say. “Write this down,” he says to me. “Damien does not like women.” I ask why not. “Because they’re not cool.” Why not? “Because I can’t relate to them.”

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Let’s Talk About Rape

Princeton students are special. We’ve been told this upon every rite of passage we have experienced. No one ever dares to contest that they have near-superhuman aptitudes for creativity and hard work, Renaissance men and women all, steeped in the finest principles of humanism. Yet there is one thing in which we cannot manage to surpass the national average.

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Gods of Princeton

In six days God created the heavens and the Earth / but He gave us no way to determine our relative social worth.

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Pitch Imperfect

It wasn’t a dare made on a drunken night nor was it a private joke made with friends—one that would make us splutter at random moments to the displeasure of a passersby. It wasn’t even one of those mental promises made casually to myself (CVS run, get pens; sign up for dinner with faculty) that eventually slips into languid oblivion.

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I Am Not What I Be

“I’m NOT!” I bellow. Not going to school, that is. My homework isn’t done, it’s already 9 am (school started at 8), and I’ve yet to shower. But my mother is up and worried, and my father is done yelling, and I’m about to break. Soon, I’ll remove myself from self-isolation and go down to breakfast. I’ll wash my face, talk to my father, and head to fourth period photography.

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Our Brains, Ourselves

It’s been hard to miss the photos from the “What I Be” project popping up on our newsfeeds and around campus these past weeks: up-close and intensely personal shots of fellow students staring unapologetically into the camera, with their deepest insecurities scrawled onto their skin in capital letters.

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Consider the Lobster Club

“Lob-what?!” Preston bellowed. “-ster club?” I ventured. I was backstage before my first Lobster Club performance and was unfamiliar with the club cheer. Everyone else had been through this before, but the response was far from unified.

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A Day in This Life

Beep Beep. Sun’s up 9:32. Ugh. Going to hit snooze button—where is snooze button? Let’s just palm entire alarm clock and see what happens. Beeeeeep. 9:41. Was that really nine minutes?

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