Princeton University Top Questions

The academics are challenging but rewarding. You have to work extremely hard here, but there is always support if you are willing to look for it. There is a huge array of university sponsored support options (ex. tutoring), but I have found that my friends have been the biggest support. Princeton students are competitive, but not against each other. We all want to be above average, but I have never seen someone refuse to help someone else just to give themselves a leg up (I've heard some horror stories from other schools). In general there is a huge amount of support.

The academics are challenging but rewarding. You have to work extremely hard here, but there is always support if you are willing to look for it. There is a huge array of university sponsored support options (ex. tutoring), but I have found that my friends have been the biggest support. Princeton students are competitive, but not against each other. We all want to be above average, but I have never seen someone refuse to help someone else just to give themselves a leg up (I've heard some horror stories from other schools). In general there is a huge amount of support.

It's hard, it's satisfying; it will humble you, it will make you proud.

Princeton has a legendary reputation for academics and for good reason. No matter your field, you will find experts here, from classics to languages to economics to astronomy to engineering. Classes can get pretty tough sometimes, but most people know how to pace themselves and stay sane.

Though when taking introduction classes to specific subjects, lectures are large, however as soon as you start taking an higher level class you are in a class with very few students and the professor. It is very easy to get to know professors and vice versa. They are extremely accessible as well as being required to teach every lecture.

We get so many opportunities to take courses with excellent faculty - this is not limited to 'famous' faculty like Paul Krugman or Cornel West. In general, the quality of the faculty is unmistakeable - some of my younger, assistant professors have been so inspirational with their enthusiasm and knowledge of their subjects.

Princeton may have its issues, but this is the area at which it excels. I've studied abroad and experienced other universities through friends. Few compare to the level of intense intellectual growth demanded at Princeton. Class topics are far ranging, diverse, and allow for extensive specialization. Professors are almost always engaged, interested, and involved in each class.

They dump a lot of information on you and expect you to learn it all - well, most of it. It may seem impossible, but everyone learns through the process. You also get access to elite professors as a perk.

The prospective Princeton student needs to be VERY careful with his or her course selection. It is all very dependent on the department and the professor or lecturer. Some classes will be once-in-a-lifetime experiences. Other classes will have grad student instructors who are so unbelievably bad that you will improve your performance by not going to class and simply learning the material on your own. Seek out student reviews of any course you plan to take. Sometimes the specific instructor can be WAY more important than objectively how interesting you think the material might be...there are numerous courses where a bad instructor manages to ruin interesting material.

The most exciting class I'm taking this semester is something I believe could only happen at Princeton: I'm in a freshman seminar taught by the university provost, Chris Eisgruber, on education policy. Prof. Eisgruber's probably one of the few people in the country most qualified to teach education policy, and here are 15 freshmen who get to sit around a table with him and talk about it. That said, though, I don't think I was very savvy in my course choices my first semester. I actually wish I'd taken another freshman seminar about a subject I'm more interested in, and my French class is way over my head while my computer science class is a total joke, it's that easy. Next semester I'm hoping to choose better, and I think that there are some awesome opportunities of which to avail yourself here--though I think that most students see class as something to slog through. You may love the subject matter, want to do this for the rest of your life, whatever, but I think most people are still looking at their watches, on Facebook during lecture, and bullshitting their way through discussion (which we call "precept"). However, I was very surprised to see that here, everyone participates. Always. What a change from my high school--here everyone is always volunteering to read aloud or to contribute to the discussion--even in my French class, where there are some kids who really can't speak French, and that doesn't stop them. I'm still adjusting from high school, and to me the workload is absolutely *grueling*--I understand that doesn't change. However, I do feel like I'm learning stuff from it. I may not always be interested in my classes right now, but there's no way it's just busywork, and I can see all this freshman-year basic stuff really morphing into hardcore academic pursuit by the time I have a major and independent work to do.