Princeton instituted its residential college system 17 years ago to provide students with a friendly, personal environment to help smooth the transition to University life.
The residential colleges — Butler, Forbes, Mathey, Rockefeller and Wilson — supply students with dining options, places for studying and relaxing and opportunities to pursue athletic, artistic and political interests.
Students pay a social fee to their colleges along with their tuition, enabling the colleges to provide special events such as study breaks and trips to Broadway shows and sporting events at discounted prices. Perhaps most importantly, each college provides its students with laundry rooms.
Randomness
All incoming students are randomly assigned to one of the five residential colleges, which are spread around campus from Butler near Poe Field to Rockefeller along Nassau Street to Forbes, part of which is literally in a separate municipality.
The colleges are coeducational, as are most of the hallways and entryways. There are separate bathrooms for men and women, however.
The five colleges usually fall into three categories, dictated by geography: "Rocky-Mathey," "Butler-Wilson" and "Forbes." That's right, just Forbes.
Students may eat at their individual college cafeterias or at any of the other colleges. While the fare at the cafeterias is often subject to jest, dining services has made an effort to improve its image by changing its name from DFS to PDS to PUDS to DDS, hiring outside chefs for special dinners and refurbishing the serveries with grills, bread warmers and flashy white tile.
These efforts have been successful to varying degrees, but be prepared to consume massive amounts of bagels, cereal, frozen yogurt and rice for both lunch and dinner. If nothing else, complaining about the food makes for easy conversation with fellow freshmen.
After two years of residential college life, most students opt to live in upperclass dorms, while a small percentage decides to live off-campus. At that time, they may also join eating clubs or become "independents" and fend for themselves.
Each college has established resident adviser groups in which an upperclass student — the RA — acts as the leader of a freshman support group. Some of your best friends for at least the first weeks of school will likely be found among these people.
To oversee academic and administrative matters, the colleges also have a master, a director of studies, faculty fellows and peer academic advisers.
Study close to home
Butler, Wilson and Forbes have their own libraries, while Mathey and Rockefeller colleges share the Laurence Rockefeller '32 Library.
College study breaks consisting of bagels, buffalo chicken wings, Thomas Sweet's ice cream and other delectables regularly provide students' brains with much-needed sources of energy.
Hoagie Haven study breaks are occasions for mild hysteria. Get there early and be aggressive.
Located in remote basements under the Butler, Mathey and Forbes dining halls, the three college cafes sell coffee, tea and inexpensive goodies like Pop Tarts and candy bars.
Intramural athletics foster spirit within colleges as students compete in sporting events against other colleges, upperclass eating clubs, graduate students and various student organizations. Among the sports offered at each college are basketball, field hockey, ice hockey, lacrosse, soccer, softball, volleyball and Ultimate frisbee.
Most colleges also circulate their own newsletters containing information on upcoming social events and intramural activities and produce literary magazines of student works.
Each college offers a variety of weekly "language tables" to give students the chance to practice conversational skills in languages including German, Spanish, French and Japanese.
Getting to know you
Each of the colleges has certain quirks that you'll get to know well.
Butler and Wilson share a ceramics studio, a student-run theater and a darkroom. Wu Hall, the main facility at Butler, houses a dining hall, lounge, TV room and game room. Butler also has a fitness room complete with rowing machines and stationary bicycles.
The college's dorm rooms are infamous for their waffle ceilings and cinder block walls.
Originally a hotel, Forbes College — formerly known as Princeton Inn College — boasts carpeted rooms, many of which contain bathrooms.
A $3-million renovation endowment from the Forbes family converted the former hotel into a college possessing a well-equipped theater, cafe and redesigned kitchen-serving area, in addition to a fitness room.
Forbes also sponsors an annual spring arts festival, which features tie-dyeing, music, free food and art exhibitions.
Mathey College, noted for its Gothic architecture, vertical entryways and basement bathrooms, provides its students with a darkroom, 24-hour study area, spacious TV room, game room, computer room and music practice rooms.
Rockefeller College shares a number of Mathey's facilities, including its cafe and another computer room.
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