Editorial: Bridge Year for all

In 2009, Princeton University introduced the Bridge Year Program, allowing incoming freshmen to spend a year abroad volunteering prior to starting their academic careers. This experience adds depth to their scholarship and surely markedly increases the maturity and international awareness of Princeton students. Unfortunately, the current Bridge Year Program is limited to incoming freshmen. Opening up the Bridge Year Program or instituting a comparable program for rising sophomores, juniors and seniors would expand the tested benefit to the whole campus, making a huge leap in Princeton’s dedication to “the service of all nations.”

The Bridge Year Program has been a great success in its first years. This is not surprising; there have always been good reasons for students to take a year off. Many students seek out such opportunities but cannot secure funding or feel too anxious at the thought of leaving Princeton. The program offers an opportunity for students to escape the Bubble and immerse themselves in another culture, while doing something meaningful. Students will return wiser, recharged and with a better understanding of the purposes and applications of their studies. Sponsored by Princeton, the program removes the risks involved in a gap year by adding credibility to the students’ time away.

Incoming freshmen are not the only students who would benefit from such an opportunity, however — all students throughout our undergraduate program might have legitimate reasons for wanting to integrate practical experience with their academic work. Furthermore, many students may not be aware of the practical dimensions of their chosen academic path until after they matriculate and begin studying. Those students should be able to make use of the University’s resources later on in their careers in exploring the practical side of their fields.

A year off working, learning about a culture and learning a language can have direct application to a student’s studies. A regional studies concentrator benefits from learning the target language before embarking on independent work in order to use sources in that language. A politics concentrator could benefit from seeing a campaign in action. There are many more examples to show us that a Princeton education need not be strictly four years in Old Nassau, but multifaceted and spread out among different locations and perspectives. In fact, the University recognizes the value of such experiences in a few programs with similar aims: Many fellowships encourage summer volunteering work in between time at Princeton, including the PICS program, available to students of all years, and the Dale Fellowship for sophomores. Such experiences should be made available to more students and for an entire academic year.

Admittedly, providing the finances for such students would require increased funding. Given the clear value of these experiences for students’ educations, though, the Board believes the investment would pay off. It is time that Princeton prioritizes “the service of all nations.” The second part of our informal motto demands equal prominence. While each of us grows immensely within campus gates, we must also have the humility to recognize that real learning and worthwhile work can occur outside our gates as well.