Follow us on Instagram
Try our daily mini crossword
Subscribe to the newsletter
Download the app

Opinion

The Daily Princetonian

Dreaming in America

The United States is a country with a prosperous past, but also one straddled with an uncommonly uncertain future. Standing in the long customs line at Newark Liberty International Airport when I arrived in September, with Manhattan’s skyline dominating the glass window behind me, I had no idea what to expect from this country. Now, almost three months in, I am still struggling to piece together the parts of this jumbled American jigsaw.

OPINION | 11/27/2011

The Daily Princetonian

Be here now

Though I recognize there are several compelling reasons why a person might bring a laptop to class — they think they take notes better or that it is helpful to Google new terms — I am against using laptops in class because of this idea of “Be here now.”

OPINION | 11/22/2011

The Daily Princetonian

Too much information

Excessive amounts of information can discourage student reflection on the subject at hand. Often students must focus so much on figuring out what’s going on in their reading that they don’t have the opportunity to think about what it means to them.

OPINION | 11/22/2011

ADVERTISEMENT
The Daily Princetonian

Writing on campus

Metzger dismissing the Nass is characteristic of the general Princeton attitude to the arts in general. In this particular case, the Nass takes the hit because it is the most prominent artistic voice on campus, but what’s really being questioned here is the role of the arts, specifically literary, in the Princeton community.

OPINION | 11/21/2011

The Daily Princetonian

Relations with P-Safe

Students and Public Safety officials ought to be on the same page — the general welfare and comfort of the Princeton community is everyone’s objective. Unfortunately, this ethos has not been created and Public Safety’s mode of operation has sometimes turned hostile and even adversarial.

OPINION | 11/21/2011

The Daily Princetonian

Editorial: Ettman for President, Mulcahy for VP

Three candidates are running for president: Catherine Ettman ’13, Bruce Easop ’13 and Shikha Uberoi ’13. Two candidates are running for vice president: Merik Mulcahy ’13 and Stephen Stolzenberg ’13. Though all of the candidates have much to offer the student body, the Editorial Board endorses Ettman for president and Mulcahy for vice president.

OPINION | 11/20/2011

The Daily Princetonian

Grades and happiness

However, my complaint is not that we are less competitive when compared to our Harvard peers. My complaint is not even that grade deflation is unfair. Rather, my argument is that the competitive atmosphere created by grades — and grade deflation in particular — is antithetical to education. My proposal is not to merely eliminate grade deflation, but to eliminate grades altogether.

OPINION | 11/17/2011

The Daily Princetonian

NassWatch

You’d be forgiven for not having noticed this, but The Daily Princetonian has a competitor on campus. It’s called the Nassau Weekly, or the “Nass” for short, and it could charitably be described as a “weekly student newspaper” containing a “blend of campus, local and national news; reviews of films and bands; original art, fiction and poetry and other college-related material.” (I stole that description from Wikipedia.) A more realistic description would focus on the large ketchup stains usually found on its cover due to its primary distribution in dining halls and eating clubs, its over-reliance on irony and its apparent lack of an editing process.

OPINION | 11/17/2011

The Daily Princetonian

Editorial: Excellence in research

We do not deny that work done on primates plays an important role in achieving goals in scientific research. While it is appropriate that the University’s researchers employ primates in their work, we have an obligation to avoid inflicting any unnecessary harm upon them in the course of conducting research. Much of the research misconduct identified by the USDA — depriving monkeys of water, for example, or failing to provide adequate care for pregnant monkeys — seems clearly to violate this obligation. We must stop these violations.

OPINION | 11/17/2011

The Daily Princetonian

Editing the Writing Center

I consider the Writing Center an extremely valuable academic help program at Princeton, and I am definitely grateful that I have access to it. But, while I have had several positive experiences at there, I think that the process could be improved. Several of my friends and I who have been to the Writing Center so far this year have experienced a significant problem with the system — the possibility that the writing fellow has little or no experience with the subject material of your paper.

OPINION | 11/16/2011

The Daily Princetonian

Princetonian entrepreneurs

In the safety of the Orange Bubble, it is hard for many students to truly grasp the tumultuous and gut-wrenching experience of those who continue to deal with the recession daily. In an economy where one in five youths is unemployed, the opportunities to get an adequate job are shrinking, and the futures of our careers remain an enigma.

OPINION | 11/16/2011