Now that theses are in and Houseparties are over, many seniors are reflecting on their times at Princeton. Where did the years go? What remains to commemorate this period of our lives? For me, the answer to this question lies in my dresser.
Since my matriculation at Princeton, the number of T-shirts I own has increased exponentially. This article of clothing seems to serve as the campus souvenir of choice, the party favor par excellence and a mark of membership. If the thesis is "quintessentially Princeton," the T-shirt may be even more so. My collection, the work of four years, takes up an entire drawer.
Had I gone on Outdoor or Community Action, one of those organizations would have provided me with my first Princeton T-shirt. Had I arrived on campus one year later, I might have been greeted by a procession of professors in long robes and by upperclassmen offering me a Pre-Rade shirt. Instead, my first shirt read "Butler buddies," the name of a program in which my college paired sophomore mentors with incoming freshmen.
In time, I accumulated more shirts from various study breaks and Alcohol Initiative events. Casino Nights, Hoe Downs and Mad Hatter Parties all offered appropriately themed shirts in an effort to draw an audience when food and fun alone might not. I have a shirt from Beijing Normal University — one of the more tangible rewards of making it through the Princeton-in-Beijing language program. I also have a shirt from my Princeton-based Birthright trip to Israel that I almost imagine still smells like the Dead Sea, despite repeated washings. By sophomore spring, I had added Tower Club regalia.
Shirts showcasing my extracurricular involvement take up a large part of my drawer. Theater is a bonanza for the collector of cotton, since every production generates its own shirt for reasons of both publicity and pride. I've always claimed to be a hanger-on in the theater community, a mere amateur, but the contents of my drawer say otherwise. Between playing in pit orchestras, helping with costumes, running spotlights and an occasional acting stint, I own close to 15 shirts of different hues.
Perhaps my favorite shirts come from my academic department. They are always black, that most European of colors, with white-lettered obscure German quotes on the back. Despite the insistence of the department chair that no one receive a senior shirt before turning in a thesis, I managed to collect — with the help of my department secretary — specimens from 2005 and 2006 before earning my own this April. It feels odd to trade one's magnum opus for a shirt, but the switch from 25 percent to 100 percent cotton does suggest an increase in value. In any case, the thesis shirt is certainly a Princeton rite of passage.
Once this point is reached, however, a sad thing happens. After one last celebratory — and consolatory — Senior Week T-shirt, the University has suddenly decided that my classmates and I have become too old, too mature or perhaps too "smart" for this most beloved of garments. In preparation for our post-Princeton lives, we are dealt out a cap, gown, hood and a beer jacket. From this apparel, we are to graduate to the suit and tie, to a world where the humble T-shirt, once the golden child of the closet, is delegated to workouts and weekends.
On June 6, I will pack most of my T-shirts into a box designated for the back of my closet at home. I might open that box occasionally in search of a particular old favorite. Or I may pull them all out again at some point, when I'm an alumna in the real world, to remember my time at Princeton and how casual it all was then, when life was as easy as finding a T-shirt. Emily Stolzenberg is a German major from Morgantown, W. Va. She can be reached at estolzen@princeton.edu.
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