Opinion

Far from home

Whereas the undergrad admission process explicitly selects candidates who would fit well into the undergrad community, graduate admission is based solely on academic criteria. It is probably impossible to try to do otherwise, but it does mean the average international grad students are less well-equipped than their undergrad counterparts to deal with the issues involved.

Cartoon: It's hard to be the middle man

Opportunities for service

I would like to highlight two worthy service opportunities for juniors and underclassmen thinking about next year. In addition to directly affecting the Princeton community in a positive way, both activities can be found within a five-minute walk from Nassau Hall.

Creating conversation space

While I and other Princetonians with the opportunity to study abroad on one of the major post-graduate fellowships must first give thanks to our parents and teachers, the countless Sunday mornings drowned in Texas French toast, yellow Powerade and debate over The New York Times with friends in the Terrace Club “smoking room” prepared me well for the combative, but intellectual, atmosphere of fellowship interviews.

Cartoon: Post thesis

The curse of the middle man

To some of us, Princeton financial aid is generous. It is time, however, to reevaluate the criteria for the distribution of that generosity.

Don't gamble with women's health

If you knew that the health of half our campus and our state was at stake, wouldn’t you be alarmed?

Editorial: Enforcing the deadline to file for USG candidacy

While incentivizing more people to run for open positions is a good thing, this should not occur at a cost to students who submitted their statements before the initial deadline.

Cartoon: The passage of time

Humanizing climate change

The list of climate-change-related numbers is endless. But people don’t relate to numbers. People relate to people. We connect to feelings. It’s much harder to be moved by abstract concepts of danger with consequences 50 or 100 years down the line.

Freshmen need not apply

The question is, how much does one year of school increase a student’s employability? For engineers, this difference could be great: Engineers only take “engineering”  their sophomore year. However, this distinction doesn’t exist to nearly the same extent for A.B. students.

Inside the head of a prefrosh

I was tricked by websites like College Confidential (admit it, you looked at it too) into believing that I would visit a school and suddenly feel a deep, undeniable connection to it while walking around campus. Alas, this love affair never happened. I liked all of the schools to which I was admitted just fine.

Broader lessons than Frodo

McGinley seems to press us, “Wow, wouldn’t it be great, and wouldn’t we be embracing some fundamental aspects of our humanity, if we paid far greater attention to and wrestled with the moral consequences of our actions?” But the answer to that is no. Not if it means a concern with “touchstone” moral values to the exclusion of other deeply-held and fundamental human values. Much of what is great about life is valuable in spite of the moral consequences.

Editorial: Time for a jury system

With little understanding of the inner workings and processes of the Honor Committee, students often feel concerned that the committee is not truly a group of their peers or representatives but is a body intent on convicting students. In considering these concerns and looking to make the process both more transparent and more representative, the creation of a jury system within the current honor system would address many student objections.

Cartoon: Toys

The culture of conversation

To win in the interview game — so I have seen over the years — candidates need not only the knowledge and skills that courses and officially sanctioned activities provide, but also a much wider sense of what matters in the world and a honed ability to carry on discussion. But Princeton, as I have known it for 35 years, doesn’t foster this kind of conversation as effectively as many of its sister institutions.

Rethinking diversity on the Supreme Court

It strikes me as probable that Kagan shares Obama’s constitutional vision, and her reputation among her fellow lawyers is high. But the question of whether she would add to the diversity of the court requires further interpretation.

Cartoon: All quiet on Prospect

PrinceCast #28: Meal plan troubles edition

Sophia LeMaire, Kelsey Zimmerman and Michael Medeiros discuss meal plan options.

The collegiate cultural time lag

The physical and time constraints of college force us to make use of tools like Hulu, but we lose out on some of the fun of popular culture.