A student in one of chemistry graduate student Sophia Kwon's MOL 214: Introduction to Cellular and Molecular Biology lab sections approached her and said, "I can't believe you're streaking with us."
"I was helping them streak yeast for the lab," she explained. "The students in my labs, they make me laugh, always."
This scene may not have been precisely what Woodrow Wilson, Class of 1879, envisioned when he instituted Princeton's preceptorial system in 1905 in the hope that it would turn Princeton students into model intellectual gentlemen. In spite of the many ways Princeton precepts have changed over the past century, however, current preceptors — both graduate students and professors — agree that the system is a vital part of a Princeton education. Nevertheless, concerns remain about students' level of intellectual engagement during discussions and professors' appreciation for the purpose of precepts.
Changes over the years
In a talk delivered in 2003, history professor Anthony Grafton highlighted some of the ways Princeton precepts changed over the course of the 20th century. Grafton described how Wilson hired the first group of Princeton preceptors by watching them eat a meal, to make sure that all of them knew proper table manners.
"[Precepts] are so distant from Wilson's original venture, and the hopes that underpinned it, as to make comparisons useless," Grafton said. Grafton is also a columnist for The Daily Princetonian.
One of the most important ways Princeton precepts have changed since their creation is that they are no longer taught only by professors but instead are mainly staffed by graduate students.
History professor Michael Mahoney, who earned his doctorate from Princeton in 1967, said professors led precepts for each other's courses in his early years at the University.
"I learned a tremendous amount from teaching precepts for my colleagues' classes," he said.
Now — though some departments, like history, require professors to teach at least one precept for their own courses — most precepts are led by graduate students. Professors rarely lead precepts for another professor's courses.
"Precepts have gone from being a faculty exercise to a graduate student exercise," Grafton said. "That has both good and bad consequences. On the one hand, it's important for graduate students to get teaching experience, but the faculty lose the wonderful course evaluations and advice you used to get from your fellow professors when they precepted for you. That's not something you can put on paper."
Graduate students versus professors
Undergraduates often must choose between enrolling in a professor's precept and participating in one led by a graduate student. "When you're in a precept with the professor of the course, you're getting the benefit of more educational experience and perhaps more sensitivity to the subtleties of the subject," music professor Paul Lansky said.
"On the other hand, the graduate students are very often more up on current trends, more up on things that are at the cutting edge of the field and perhaps more inventive about ways to deal with students' questions."
Mahoney said that undergraduates are sometimes less willing to talk in front of professors for fear of being wrong. He added that graduate students have the advantage of being closer in age to undergraduates.
What preceptors think
When graduate students first start teaching precepts, they're often unsure of what they will find.
"I expected the students here to be superhuman and never ask dumb questions or make mistakes because Princeton is such a top educational institution," Kwon said. "But teaching here has made me realize that students are just students."
Though Kwon added that she is "impressed by how attentive students are here," she said she wishes they would focus more on seeking knowledge for its own sake than on boosting their GPAs. "They're very intense," she said of Princeton undergraduates. "They're always worried about what will be on the exam and more worried about requirements and grades than intellectual curiosity."
Many preceptors echoed the sentiment that Princeton undergraduates are often more focused on academic success than intellectual adventure.
Electrical engineering graduate student Zubin Jacob said the students in his ELE 201: Introduction to Electrical Signals and Systems precepts in the fall "were all quite smart, never lazy [and] usually impressive." But, he added, students were "at times quite keenly bookish and not ready to expand their horizons."
"The majority of students here at Princeton are really bright, the top-20 percent is exceptionally impressive," politics graduate student Jaime Kirzner-Roberts said in an email. "I am always surprised by the bottom-20 percent of students, who don't seem to care about school work and make very little effort. I always wonder how they got into Princeton, and why it is that they are not kicked out."
Graduate students cited the opportunity to bond with undergraduates, especially those with similar interests, as one of the most rewarding aspects of teaching precepts.
"Overseeing [Community Based Learning Initiative] projects in ANT 335 (Medical Anthropology), in fall 2004, was a great experience," anthropology graduate student Leo Coleman said in an email. "I went with students as they visited a state hearing about New Jersey's death penalty, and with another group to a food bank in Trenton. Working on those papers and with those students was especially engaging, since we had some shared experiences to reflect on, and a shared interest in the topics."
Many graduate students agreed that teaching and discussing their subject with undergraduates at a more introductory level often helps them understand material more clearly. It also forces them to consider and analyze concepts they have internalized as common sense, they said, so they can explain them to their students.
"You learn material differently when you have to teach it," Eva Kaye, a graduate student in the politics department who is currently precepting POL 240: International Relations, said. "I prepare for a class so much more thoroughly when I'm teaching it than when I'm taking it."
Art history professor Rachael DeLue added that, in a lecture setting, a professor feels pressured to cover a certain amount of material, but in a precept she has the "luxury" of slowing down the pace of the class.
Another advantage of precepting is that "you never feel neglected," Kwon said. "There's always a hundred billion emails in my inbox saying 'I'm sick, so I missed lab today,' or 'how should I do this problem?' "
Why do graduate students lead precepts?
Some graduate students are required by their department to do a certain amount of teaching. Kaye said that the politics department requires its graduates to teach nine precepts in order to receive a full five years of funding.
"In the history department, graduate students are not required to teach any precepts at all," said Jeffrey Schwegman, who was a HIS 292: Science in the Modern World preceptor in the fall. "We choose to teach voluntarily. Sometimes we do so for financial reasons, in our sixth or seventh year at Princeton, after our general stipend has run out, teaching can be the major way of earning a living."
Other graduate students said that the compensation for precepting in their department was not substantial enough to be a major incentive.
"We are paid terribly, so no one would do it for the money," Kirzner-Roberts said.
Difficulties of conducting precepts
As for the challenges of precepting, many graduate students said that encouraging participation from all the students in the section was one of the most difficult parts of their job.
Others said that the major time commitment required to lead precepts made it more difficult to do all of their own work.
"Whether you're teaching or not they expect you to do the same amount of research, which is just ridiculous, since when you're teaching you have to go to lectures, plan and set up labs, go to the four-hour labs twice a week and do all the grading," Kwon said.
Hirsch, however, said the comparative literature department allows students to spend less time on their own independent work while they are teaching.
"For me, the hard part was speaking because I am a nonnative speaker, so I was wondering for a while if the students understood a word I was saying or not," mechanical engineering graduate student Ben Nabet said. "But I think they [did]."
Preceptors also had mixed opinions about their relations with professors.
"I've had a professor tell me that he 'didn't understand the point of precept,' which doesn't exactly inspire you to great heights in your own teaching," said one graduate student, who was granted anonymity because of the potential for repercussions from the course's professor.
The preceptors interviewed suggested several improvements to the precepting system. Among these were extending the length of precepts to give students more time to engage in discussion, making precept sections smaller and providing better teaching training for graduate students.
"It takes a lot of practice to acquire the techniques you need to [lead a precept] effectively," Schwegman said. "I'm sure I speak for all graduate students when I say that I am most grateful to Princeton undergraduates for allowing us to practice on them."
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