They will write it, sign it, and celebrate it: Palestine, a global affirmation of support for a people that has been oppressed for far too long. Here’s hoping our government one day joins in.
If I wanted my educators — or fellow classmates — to have convictions about how I should socialize, I would have gone to West Point or Brigham Young University. But I didn’t, and I am damn disappointed that I was misled.
There is a big trade-off involved in doing a summer internship. Instead of getting the chance to rejuvenate from the school year, you have to deal with the stress and demands of the workplace. You give up the opportunity to study or volunteer abroad or get a normal summer job in your hometown. And because most internships are unpaid, you’re paying a couple thousand dollars to do this.
This is about more than fraternities and sororities. It’s about our ability to associate freely as the young adults we are. As a legal matter, perhaps the University has the authority to do any or all of this. But that won’t make it right.
Perhaps my friend was not at fault for relying on Stewart, but rather Stewart for failing to care for those who had become dependent on him. It seemed that in watching Stewart week after week, my friend and those like him had gone from simply looking at him through the glow of their TV or computer monitors to looking up to him.
Today is the 11th of September. We call it Sept. 11, or 9/11. It was the 11th of September when a boy in my fifth grade history class pointed out the window at downtown Manhattan and shouted that one of the twin towers was on fire. It was 9/11 when we saw a second plane fly into the other tower.
A short while after I was asked to write a piece for this commemorative issue, I visited the 9/11 Memorial Garden tucked into a courtyard of one of the oldest buildings on campus, East Pyne. It was getting dark and I, still unsure of how to discuss that unimaginable event, sat thoughtfully on one of the garden’s benches.
I must admit, I wasn't fully prepared. Even after more than six months of anticipating how I would feel when I actually saw it, the first sight still left me dumbstruck. In truth, nothing I could have done beforehand could have completely prepared me for the carnage of Ground Zero. You won't understand until you've seen it.
To be sure, entrepreneurship may be a riskier career path than finance or consulting. But in spite of the risks, the potential for impact and success at such a young age is incomparable.
In my experience, admitting to others the terrible deed of not concealing that I multitask from the professor usually ends in accusations of something akin to social treason — for which a barefoot walk to the Canossa of the lectern tainted by my misdemeanor might be the least I could do to redeem myself.
When Barack Obama announced that Osama bin Laden had been killed, my only reaction was somber relief. I strongly believe that this was the most significant event of Obama’s presidency — but it was not, I think, an occasion for exuberant celebration. A guilty man was executed.
Somewhere during the month-long preparation for the three-day blowout, we forget that we have invited back on campus the Princeton many of us are not too fond of, and indeed the Princeton many of us could not attend.
I urge you, President Tilghman, do not attempt to fill our pails. Allow us to light our own fires, and work with us to ensure that we do not inadvertently set something else ablaze.
No one will ever have their perfect Princeton, so instead of arguing for the implementation of a specific policy, I will simply endorse some form of self-scheduled exams at a high level.
As most students surely recognize, the social opportunities offered by residential colleges and most activity-oriented student groups tend to pale in comparison to the social networks provided by the kinds of organizations the working group finds so problematic.
Regardless of the particular proposals, Princeton’s dangerous culture of “work hard, party hard” must end. The University should at very least continue its program of providing alternatives to that culture.
My illumination wasn’t quite as powerful as the bolt of lightning that struck Tom Wolfe at a 1965 panel discussion in Princeton, when he listened to Gunter Grass and Allen Ginsberg decrying America’s descent into fascism and declared that on the contrary, we were undergoing a happiness explosion. But it was strong enough. Suddenly I began to realize that in America even a humble humanist has a great deal to be thankful for.
