I finally realized that something was amiss when I was rudely awakened by sirens for the third night in a row. The uneasy feeling that I had so successfully repressed while searching for the apartment, signing the lease, and moving myself in finally manifested itself as a low, visceral ache in my gut and a whispered refrain: "you’re out of your depth." Out of my depth? The notion seemed absurd: three years of education at the nation’s top university and I didn’t know how to rent an apartment? And yet, there I was, stuck with a three-month lease for an apartment whose leaky plumbing, shoddy wiring and crime-ridden surroundings made themselves apparent within a week.
It was no one’s fault but my own, of course: just as the man who shows up to a used car lot with no prior research will find himself driving out in a twenty-year-old Corolla, the man who fails to do due diligence before signing a lease will end up in an apartment complex where people get murdered for their Vietnam War medals. To quote Robocop: “that’s life in the big city.”
But it sure isn’t life in Princeton. Within the Orange Bubble, over 98 percent of undergraduate students obtain their housing through the University. Say what you will about the inequities of room draw, but it is a far cry from the real housing market, where shifty salesmen and prevaricating landlords will do their best to fleece unsuspecting customers. My own poorly-researched summer lease worked out fine, giving me some funny stories and some much-needed perspective, but it illustrated to me a larger point: life at Princeton had not at all prepared me for life in the mythical Real World.
Housing is just the tip of the iceberg, too: thanks to Princeton’s tireless efforts to make this campus a safer and easier place to live, it is now possible for students to graduate without ever going through the hassle of signing a lease, buying or making their own food, interacting with non-college educated people, dealing with the dangers of crime, using a physical keyor any number of other skills made redundant by the University’s services. Because of both external pressures and, I believe, a genuine desire to make life better for its students, Princeton may have inadvertently crossed the line between supporting and coddling us.
The role of higher education in public life seems to be in a state of flux, especially as the rate of people seeking degrees has so drastically expanded in recent decades: to some, secondary education exists to teach the new generation “how to think,” by instilling values and asking hard questions; to others, it is a four year excursion to “find oneself” through new experiences and acquaintances; still others believe that colleges and universities ought to be training grounds for marketable skills, the end goal of which is employment. There are a number of arguments for these and other viewpoints, and each of the thousands of schools in the United States has a slightly different belief in what it should be giving its students. The commonality between these views, though, is that a college or university takes in students unprepared for the world — mentally, personally or technically — and fills in the necessary gaps. All else being equal, then, any institution of higher education should be outputting graduates as prepared for adult life as possible.
With this in mind, the cheery, safe, low-consequence world that Princeton creates for us in the end does us a disservice. No matter how well-constructed the Utopia that the school works towards is, it only lasts us four short years —after which we are rudely thrown into a bare-knuckle world with no training. This is what makes summer experiences and semesters abroad so valuable: students are able to escape the University’s mothering and see what will be expected of them once their four year dream is over. But it shouldn’t be the case that students’ most educational experiences occur only when they are free of the University’s loving shackles.
What might the University do to fix its inadvertent stunting of students’ growth? Because the current way of doing things is so entrenched in campus culture, it would be difficult to substantively change the dining plan or housing system, but ideally a number of small policy changes could better instill the idea that students ought to be responsible, trustworthy adults. Offering courses in real-world skills would also at least show students that there exist these gaps in their knowledge. Most importantly, though, administrators and professors (as well as students themselves) should constantly be aware that the vast majority of the student body is comprised of adults: people above the age of eighteen who are, in the eyes of the law, fully responsible for their own actions and inactions. I believe that people act as they are treated —and will get away with anything they are allowed to —so only students treated as morally, legally and socially responsible adults will act as such. However it is done, it is imperative that the University and its students understand that learning how to function as an adult is infinitely more valuable than a few fleeting years in paradise.
Steve Swanson is a Computer Science major from Vienna, Va. He can bereached at sswanson@princeton.edu.
Read More
Encampments are not ‘inherently unsafe.’ Princeton should not arrest or expel students for them.
Daily Princetonian Editorial Board“We urge Princeton to cease student arrests and to refrain from expelling students simply for engaging in prolonged protest.”
“We urge Princeton to cease student arrests and to refrain from expelling students simply for engaging in prolonged protest.”
On encampments, free speech, and ‘time, place, and manner’ rules on university campuses
Christopher L. EisgruberPresident Christopher Eisgruber ’83 comments on encampments, free speech, and “time, place, and manner” rules.
President Christopher Eisgruber ’83 comments on encampments, free speech, and “time, place, and manner” rules.
Princeton needs to be a climate justice leader — emphasis on the ‘climate,’ emphasis on the ‘justice’
Alex Norbrook and Eleanor Clemans-Cope“Princeton must not only withdraw its support from injustices, but also positively re-invest in sustainable and community-informed initiatives.”
“Princeton must not only withdraw its support from injustices, but also positively re-invest in sustainable and community-informed initiatives.”
