A few weeks ago, I went to a law school admission presentation hosted by four of the top programs in the country. As a sophomore who still hasn’t fully decided what I want to major in, let alone what exactly I want to do after Princeton, I felt a bit awkward going. This was, of course, exacerbated by the fact that I assumed I’d be the youngest person there and that I really didn’t need to be thinking that far ahead yet anyway. But, nevertheless, I found myself a seat in the back of Frist Campus Center 302 less than two years after opening my acceptance letter from Princeton to hear about the law school equivalent of the Common Application and application process I feel like I just finished getting through.
As it turned out, I was not the only sophomore at the event (which was held on Oct. 1 or less than a month into the school year), and I was doubly surprised to see one attendee raise their hand when one of the deans asked if there were any freshmen in the audience. While I admittedly had felt in myself some of the same qualities that undoubtedly motivated that individual to attend a meeting for a law school they won’t begin attending until 2018 at the absolute earliest (uncertainty about the future, curiosity, ambition), my first thought was, “Wow, that was a short honeymoon.”
We spend an inordinate amount of our livesconcerned with the ‘next step.’ Personally, I began preparing for the entrance exams for my grades 7-12 high school in the fall of sixthgrade, started seriously thinking about college in the late spring of junior year and spent much of senior year applying for, stressing about and then planning for the start of college. The real ‘honeymoon period’ for me purely being able to enjoy the high point of my high school experience started only in January and then only because I was fortunate enough to get accepted early. So it could be said that of the past eight years of my educational life, I’ve spent nearly half worrying about ‘the next thing.’ I wouldn’t think it ridiculous to posit that this applies to many people on this campus as well. Many Princeton seniors will tell you that freshman year is spent learning the ropes, and junior and senior years are consumed with job hunting, interviews and grad school applications (not to mention independent work). It is sad —but makes sense —to acknowledge that only one of your four years here can truly be spent being here, exclusively, fully engaging in your Princeton experience without regard for the next possible steps of the future. If we’re only going to have one full year to enjoy Princeton completely, knowing this place well and not having to worry about what’s coming next, we should hold on to every moment of that year and try to extend the honeymoon period beyond it if circumstances allow.
Let me be clear; I in no way wish to single out the freshman at the law school event I went to and attack their personal decision about when to start planning for the future. Rather, I simply wish to decry the way the current system requires us to spend so much of our present thinking about that future. At some point, it’s both OK and necessary to recognize that we are currently in the future we planned for ourselves and worked incredibly hard to reach. I’m not arguing that 12 months into our Princeton careers, we begin spending every waking moment filling out grad school apps; but I am saying that we are forced intoworrying about our next steps —at least privately —too early in our Princeton years. A better world would be one in which society gives us a longer honeymoon period to enjoy the present we worked hard for in the past and one that delays just a little longer the inevitable planning for the next step. It’s wrong and a waste of time and talent to spend so much of our high school and college lives standing on an incredible pedestal, only to be distracted by concerns for the future and trying to use that pedestal as a springboard to the next one. Yes, the clock will one day run out on X phase of life, but the inevitability of changing life phases doesn’t have to mean we spend all our time planning for a future that always stays one step ahead of where we currently are.
Ryan Dukeman is a sophomore from Westwood, Mass. He can be reached at rdukeman@princeton.edu.
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