Princeton University Top Questions

Princeton's academics are first rate. I found nearly all my professors to be great teachers and very accessible. Precepts and office hours make getting individual attention easy. I took some pretty tough engineering classes, but never found any of them to be competitive. Everyone in my department was happy to help each other out. Generally, the amount of studying varies a lot, but I think the majority of people undertake a reasonable courseload and lead pretty balanced life. I do have some criticisms of Princeton's academics. There aren't enough formal research programs for undergrads, so if you want to do research you just have to talk to a professor and hope he or she has a project you can work on. This can be particularly difficult for underclassmen who may not know faculty in their department of interest. I also think Princeton's teaching schedule is way too compressed. As it stands, the academic calendar consists of 12 weeks of classes with a three week combined reading and exam period. The result is not much absorption during the semester and much cramming and self-teaching during the long reading period. I know Princeton is in the process of changing this (or at least considering changing it) and this will be a great improvement if it goes through.

I have made some incredible relationships with Professors here. You'd be incredibly surprised as to how approachable even the most famous professors are. I am very fortunate to have established a very strong relationship with Professor Robert George (Professor in Politics). My favorite classes have been Constitutional Interpretation, Civil Liberties (both in the Politics Department), International Protection of Human Rights (in the Woodrow Wilson School), and The South in American Literature (English). Class participation is absolutely essential. Intellectual conversations occur everywhere on campus - on the fields, in coffee shops, on walks, in ice cream shops, in the library, and in class. Competition has increased recently because of the administration's Grade Deflation policy. Overall, the education at Princeton both in the classroom and out of the classroom is absolutely incredible.

Where else can a freshman learn creative writing with Joyce Carol Oates in a 15 person seminar? Where else can you talk to Cornel West about what's on your mind as a 19 year old? Where else can you have one on one non-fiction writing conferences with John McPhee? The professors will know your name unless you're in a large lecture course, which isn't uncommon. However, as a student, you have many opportunities to take small seminars and classes. Faculty are extremely accessible. I keep in regular contact with my journalism professor from last semester. We have already had dinners and meetings to catch up and gossip about the latest political news. He even offered me a job at a national magazine when I graduate! On another note, Princeton is a competitive place. Obviously, the infamous grade deflation policy is a main culprit. However, students are competitive with themselves, not with other students. A final note is that Princeton is a hardcore liberal arts school. There are almost no professional programs or departments. This allows students, no matter their major, to be a well-rounded and well-educated citizen.

My favorite classes at Princeton would be PHI 384: Philosophy of Law, POL 315: Constitutional Interpretation, History 211: History of Europe from Antiquity to 1700, SLA 312: Russian Drama, COS 109: Computers in Our World, ENG 331: The 19th Century Novel, POL 388: Causes of War. In all of these classes the professors were absolutely outstanding--engaging, fascinating, insightful lectures, and the feeling that they really cared about and were interested in students. As much as the science distribution requirement annoyed me, I think the distribution system is great--and though people find ways of wriggling out of really exploring a variety of disciplines, in general it is great for introducing you to areas of study you wouldn't necessarily have been interested in on your own.

Not all professors know your name but definitely all preceptors. Students study alot. Everyday. But I think a good number of people follow the motto Work Hard, Play Hard. Or Work Harder, Play Harder in some cases. Class participation is very common. Most people are very active in class discussions. And students do continue class conversations out of the classroom often. I feel like students are more competitive just with themselves and not with each other. People are always forming study groups and willing to help each other out before exams.

As an electrical engineer, I can honestly say that Princeton is one of the most challenging schools in the Ivy League. Harvard and Yale's academic programs pale in comparison from what Princeton offers. I find that most students are fairly competitive; they are, however, not the type to sabotage your final project to ensure their A.

Academics is incredibly different than in high school. You have no academic reputation going into a class, especially not freshman or sophomore year. Seminars and precepts would be great if everyone is engaged in the class, which occasionally they are, but mostly precepts consist of awkward silences and forced questions by grad students. It is nice to be able to sit down and mention something even mildly academic and not have people yell at you for "getting all smart on them". People here are typically generally interested in the classes they take and their personal research, which can lead to some very interesting conversations. Sometimes I wish that Princeton students would apply this interest to a field when looking for a job, rather than the hordes of people that interview for I-Banking jobs.

As expected, the size of the class often determines how much you actually get to interact with professors. However, I did find that if you made the effort to seek professors out for help or even to just chat about the readings, most professors were pretty responsive. Also, I think this varies from department to department. I majored in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and found that the faculty and students could have a very close relationship; I often met with professors outside of both the class and Princeton setting. For example, I attended one of my Professor's surprise birthday parties and I also went to dinner with Professors and their families. My favorite classes at Princeton were offered through the Ecology and Evolutionary Biology (EEB) department and the Philosophy department. I felt like both of these departments were devoted to learning for its own sake, which I personally really enjoyed. I'd say that the amount of studying really varied from student to student depending on the student's level of course work and extracurricular activities. In my experience, it is really easy to overwhelm yourself at Princeton because there are so many great classes and there are a lot of different extracurricular activities. Even though I was really busy with classes and activities, it was always easy to hang out with friends since most of the students live on campus and, therefore, are within a 10 minute walk no matter where I was on campus.

Professors are students are generally disconnected. The only way to develop a relationship with them is if you find yourself in a small class or seminar. Full of Type-A personalities, Princeton students are mostly competitive with themselves. Talking about grades is generally taboo. What's much more intense is the social competition on campus. Get ready for fake smiles and sucking up as you go through rushes, applications, interviews, and bicker, all in the Princeton tradition of selectivity. The distribution requirements are easy to complete and are flexible in applying to classes among various departments so that you're bound to find at least one you find interesting.

Professors in your major know your name. Also, professors for other classes will know your name if you make a point to join the discussion or reach out to them. My favorite class was Probability and Stochastic Systems because the subject matter was challenging but very interesting to me. It's definitely a class for numbers-oriented, analytical people. In my experience, class participation was not that common, and it only happened when force was used. There are intellectual conversations--some of the best I had--outside of class. Everyone is type A, so yes students are competitive. The most unique class I took was Knowing Innocence, a study of the meaning of innocence through the lens of literature and art, led by the amazing Professor Larry Danson. Operations Research and Financial Engineering is not for the faint of heart. There are lots of long nights and long computer programs and problem sets out the wazoo. But you learn more than you ever thought you could and have a free ticket to do whatever quantitative job you want after graduation. I spent many hours with professors outside of class, mostly in office hours or review sessions, but sometimes on the golf course too! Princeton academic requirements are fine, but I think AB students should have to take more rigorous science/math electives. Also, the pdf option is baloney--it only promotes slacking. The Princeton education is about the formation of an adult mind. Students don't have a problem getting jobs, but it's because they have learned for its own sake and employers recognize that.

I loved my relatively small department - Art and Archaeology. The professors all fostered personal relationships with students, occasionally even inviting to their homes for dinner.

Yes, professors definitely knew my name. My favorite class was taught by a truly captivating professor whose lectures were more like enlightening shows. It was Soviet History taught by Professor Stephen Kotkin. My least favorite class was organic chemistry, since in my opinion the professor displayed an almost criminal habit of favoritism. Students study as often as they need or desire, as I would imagine is the case in almost every school. Class participation is indeed common. Princeton students do have intellectual conversations outside of class. Some students are more competitive than others, but again, that is probably true of most schools. The most unique class I've taken was Spanish. I love history so I thoroughly enjoyed my major. There are certain departments that are much more pleasant and personable than others. The history department is one of the greatest in the world, but is a little too large to truly be as personal as smaller ones, also with great people, like Spanish and Physics. I did not spend time with professors outside of class. I think Princeton's academic requirements are fair and indicative of the caliber of student you'll find there. The education at Princeton overall is whatever you make of it. If you are only using it as a stepping stone to get a job, you can certainly do that. But if you want to indulge pure intellectual curiosity, that is certainly a realistic possibility as well.

If you're in a smaller class or seminar, and if you make the effort to introduce yourself/get to know the professor, they usually know your name. Not as much the case in a big seminar, though it depends how much effort you put into it outside of the immediate class time, presumably (i.e. do you go to office hours?). Students are somewhat competitive, but I have never felt a real negative vibe from this--most are willing to share notes, study together, etc. Princeton's academic requirements are generally not bad--the distribution requirements make it so that every undergraduate has some exposure to most general areas of academics without making any particular class (besides freshman writing seminar) an absolute must. I think both of these factors are generally positive, because they offer choice while still structuring your courseload/study somewhat, especially in your first 2 years; and then when you pick a major, you acquire some additional (self-imposed) requirements in your particular department, which generally ensure that you get a pretty good range of knowledge/education in your area of focus (though even then, you have a good amount of freedom in structuring your studies).

I had an incredible academic experience at Princeton. The school really pushes for education for its own sake, encouraging students to take courses in a variety of subjects and to challenge themselves as much as possible. The environment is fairly intense (people generally take academics seriously and spend a lot of time studying) but it never felt very competitive. After starting law school, I realize how collegial my classmates at Princeton were. We would ALWAYS help each other and work in teams whenever possible. Professors were also always willing to interact with students. I had an incredible thesis advisor who I still talk to all the time. My other professors were also great teachers in addition to being (mostly) brilliant.

On the whole, Princeton students devote a lot of time to their classes. They are not cutthroat and often study in groups, despite administrative efforts to combat "grade inflation" by putting departmental guidelines on the number of A's given. Classes range from 200-person lectures to 6-person seminars. Lectures are broken down once a week into "precepts," roughly 15-person groups often led by a TA but sometimes by a professor. Precepts range widely in quality, but instruction in general is of a high caliber and TAs never lecture. People keep a good pulse on which classes are good, so it helps to ask around when selecting classes. Despite the administration's promotion of small classes, some of my own favorites have been large lectures: macroeconomics with former Federal Reserve Vice Chair Alan Blinder, or microeconomics with former Council of Economic Advisers member Harvey Rosen. Seminars delve into advanced topics and are held once a week for three hours. This setup suits some students and not others; it's a matter of preference. It's advisable to take a few, though, because that's where you'll get to know your professors and fellow students better. Introductory language classes, too, are smaller and you're likely to befriend your grad student instructor or fellow language students. A few classes (such as in art history) take expenses-paid trips over breaks. They're by application, but it's well worth seeking them out. Requirements: Princeton is flexible, but it's not a free-for-all like Brown. A.B. students (engineers differ) take 10 different classes in 7 designated course areas, theoretically providing the "liberal arts" education Princeton is meant to be. Some are less than rigorous, which is useful in that the biggest science-phobe can find a manageable class, but something of a detriment in that they can seem like a waste of time. Overall, exposure to different fields is a good thing and many people find their majors through experimentation. A writing seminar, hateful but helpful, is required freshman year. There is a language proficiency requirement which AP credits can cover. The language departments are great, with many opportunities for study abroad and internships, so experiment with languages if you have time. The requirements for your major vary by department. Some, like econ, have prerequisites which take careful planning. My department, Spanish, is more flexible, requiring 8 upper-level Spanish courses. Some can be "cognates," courses outside the department that engage the field in one way or another. I've thus had time to experiment with other fields like economics and art history even as an upperclassman. The most unique part of Princeton academics is the mandatory senior thesis, a 60-100 page independent project. Junior papers (usually 2, of about 25 pages each) in the third year lead up to this but don't have to relate to the thesis topic. This seems overwhelming, but when senior year rolls around, everyone gets through it. Some seniors hate the thesis and others get into it, but in hindsight, most find it a valuable academic exercise.

Princeton has some of the most unbelievable opportunities in the classroom. While it is a lot of work, the payoff is incredible and the quality of the classes make the work worthwhile. Last fall I took a Freshman Seminar course with eleven other students on materials science. With only twelve students were were able to work extremely closely with a professor in the Chemical Engineering department who works on grants for NASA developing new materials for applications in airplanes and space. To be able to work so closely with an expert in the field was an amazing experience and many schools don't offer these kinds of opportunities to students at the Freshman Level. I am an engineer and while we have to take more classes than the B.A. students here, I have really developed a bond with the other engineers in my class. It's a ton of work, but it's worth it. The biggest concern with Princeton is their grade deflation policy that limits the number of A level grades a teacher can give in a semester. This makes some classes extremely competitive, but it's part of the Princeton process.

Professors are wonderful, especially if you take time out to get to know a few personally (tragically, I have only begun this practice my senior year). Always choose your classes based on the professor. Students are sometimes overly competative, but you need not be. History is a wonderful department, since it is populated by tweed jackets, properly dusty bookshelves, and professors who spiritually exist in the 17th century. Also, you can study anything that happened before last week, and so have plenty of academic freedom and range. Also, you should certainly pick out one professor who you admire, and ask him/her your freshman year to help design a four year course of study for you. There is no way to properly take advantage of the preponderance of good course Princeton has to offer if you're only getting a taste here and there, or planning a single semester ahead (like I did). Devise multi-yearl trajectories of learning, with the help of an admired professor (who are mostly very helpful and happy to assist you in your academic pursuits). Professor Robert George is the nicest and most exciting professor at Princeton. Be sure to stop by and say hi to him during office hours, and definitely become his student and acquaintance. You will learn more than you thought possible.

There's no getting around it: you will work very hard at Princeton. As an engineer, my life was dominated by problem sets and design projects. I was often overwhelmed, but ultimately felt extremely proud of my accomplishments and the work that I produced. My professors were very approachable and usually held regularly scheduled office hours to further discuss lecture material. Additionally, precepts were an excellent time to clear-up any confusion, to go over problem sets, and to hear other students' thoughts and opinions. The most memorable part of your undergrad experience will likely be your senior thesis project. This represents an enormous amount of work, but if you select a topic that interests you, it is easy to become engrossed in your research. Looking back now, I almost can't believe that I was able to produce a 100-pg document about a topic that I knew very little about at the beginning of senior year. I really value this experience and am extremely proud every time I look back at the finished product.

With all the engineering classes I've taken, the professors really make an effort to get to know each and every student individually. They stop in the hallway and say hi and make smalltalk. My favorite class so far has been solid state electronic devices. The class was really small; it was more like a seminar. We could always ask the TA for help whenever we needed it, and the professor made an effort to get to know us. Also, the material was really interesting because it filled in a lot of informational "holes" that had been left by previous "handwaving" in more elementary electrical engineering classes. Professors are always very approachable, and if you ever express interest in getting involved in research, they're more than happy to tell you about their research and bring you into their lab.

How much do students study? A LOT. But not in a bad way. It's great to be in an environment where most people put studying first during the day on most weekdays, but make fun a priority on nights and weekends. Actually, that's not even true. Kids here know how to make studying fun. And the parties are great.

The classes are almost always small (with the exception of about 5 introductory classes). It is ridiculous how well you get to know some professors. I have been to one of my professor's houses two times and am planning on going again in two weeks for dinner. Doug Massey knows my name and likes talking to me. I can't imagine a more inspiring academic sphere However, I wish grade inflation didn't exist. It makes learning for its own sake a little difficult.

Professors will often know your names, especially if you are in their precept. My favorite class so far was a history class called "The New Nation." It was taught by Sean Wilentz, who is nationally recognized as one of America's leading historians, and was a truly wonderful lecturer. My least favorite class was an astrophysics class called "The Universe" - it had great lecturers and was fairly easy, but I wasn't interested in the subject matter and was only taking it to fulfill a distribution requirement. Students study pretty much whenever they are not sleeping or partying - people tend to live by the "work hard to play hard" motto. Class participation is vibrant - mostly because it is usually a large percentage of your grade for the course, but also because people seem to be genuinely engaged with the reading and discussion topic. In my experience, Princeton students have a lot of intellectual conversations outside of class. Students are EXTREMELY competitive - competition drives nearly all aspects of Princeton's social and academic life. The most unique class I've taken was an anthropology seminar entitled "Law and Love: an Anthropology of Social Forces." I have not officially declared a major yet since I am still a sophomore, but I am considering anthropology. The department is small, so students get more attention from faculty. I have never spent time with professors outside of class, but most people I know have had a meal or coffee with a professor at some point in their Princeton careers. Most professors welcome and encourage student invitations to meet with them outside of class. Princeton's academic requirements are rigorous, but fair and ultimately rewarding. Education at Princeton is what one makes of it - but the way distribution requirements are set up, students are heavily encouraged to explore all kinds of disciplines and learn for learning's sake.

Class here is what you make of it. there are fabulous professors and not so great ones, and ditto with the classes. I don't think you should eve rtake a class you don't like.

Small campus, so undergraduate focused so professors are incredibly accessible, know their students names and are really engaged. Princeton students are always having insane, intellectual, thought-provoking conversations EVERYWHERE. Students can be competitive, but those kids are marginalized, and really on the periphery. Princeton's education is centered on lots of independent work and 7 distribution requirements, so very liberal arts. We have a great mix of courses, some exceedingly practical, others are exercises in futility and pure academia. You really have your pick. I'm only a freshman but I have loved all my classes, but I am in an awesome anthropology seminar where we talk about the competing social forces of love and law in everyday life. Very provocative and compelling.

My favorite class so far was my Psych 101 lecture freshman fall, with a fantastic, funny, engaging professor who then met with me early the next semester to help me think about major options. I have enjoyed basically all of my classes, and the professors have been very willing to help students. The students are surprisingly non-competitive - many Princeton students come from extremely competitive high schools, and it's really a relief to be here and be able to talk about grades in a course and not feel a competitive edge from everyone around you. I am a music major, and part of the reason I came to Princeton is the music community - not just in the department, which is very nurturing and has lots of offerings, but the student body itself. Princeton has distribution requirements which can be a pain, especially the science with lab ones for non-science majors, but I think it's a good experience. Princeton's thesis requirement apparently inspires a lot of controversy, but I really think it's crucial that students have the experience of a large body of independent work because nothing could better prepare you for the real world. There also aren't as many graduate students on campus, and we don't have the typical professional schools, so the focus really is on undergrads.

Academics are a big deal here. Everyone is very focused on them, and there is a general expectation that academics are going to be a very high priority. Many people spend a huge amount of time on academics. Due to recent changes in policy, grade inflation is being combated. This means that it is very hard to get an A, as there is actually a limit to the percentage of any given class that can receive one. This increases the intensity of the academics, because there is an element of competition built into the system. While it is not too difficult to get B's in classes without a ridiculous amount of effort, it because very difficult to get an A. This is because you know everyone else in the class is working really hard, so unless you do too, it's hard to keep up. The courses are very interesting, though, and manageable in difficulty. As long as you take them seriously, you really can get a lot out of them pretty painlessly. The professors are amazing, because a lot of the time they are the leaders of their field. I recently took a class with Peter Singer which was unbelievable. I really can't stress enough that it is amazing to learn from these people.

It's hard to really say what makes a great class. The professor has a big influence, as does the reading list, as do the students who take it. Luckily, at Princeton all three are usually pretty strong. Professors are brilliant, men and women at the top of their field. Classes are amazingly varied in focus, so two different courses on the same text can be entirely different and entirely enlightening. Professors are very accessible, though good academic advising is often difficult to come by. My major in particular, Comparative Literature, is great in that it shares professors with many other small departments, so the variety of backgrounds is vast, but all have time to work with you. Students are intelligent, but most are aware that everyone here is intelligent so there's no need to show off. People will have casual conversations about high-level intellectual subjects and highly intellectual conversations about inane subjects at the same meal. While the larger departments often offer less support, and economics and Woodrow Wilson School majors are often very job oriented, most people will take advantage of all sides of their department and others to get a well-rounded and intellectually exciting experience.

Academics at Princeton are great. The professors are really accessible and friendly.

Some professors know my name. In general I've found they only know it if they were my preceptor, advisor, or taught a seminar (excepting Michael Barry). If you go to office hours, they will know your name. But unless you make an effort somehow to communicate with them they won't. But it's not their job to memorize everyone's name. Fav class ever was Causes of War with Gary Bass. Sure he can come across as arrogant sometimes, but this guy sat in on Milosevic's trial...he kind of has done some amazing things. He basically inspired me to be a pol major. And many other things in my life. I love him. Worst class. Probably The Psychology and Philosophy of Rationality. Harman is the stereotpyical Philosophy prof and he's just awful. I learned nothing. Thank god I PDF'd it. It was soooo bad. I feel like I study pretty much every day but Friday. Not a whole lot on Saturdays either. I have friends that only do work once every 2 weeks, stay up all night to do problem sets and then crash. Their grades aren't so good either. Participation in precept is high...kind of mandatory. Otherwise in lecture, generally not. People def have intellectual convos outside of class. People are competitive. We got into Princeton. It's in our blood. College does lessen that somewhat. But then there's grade deflation. The pol department is pretty awesome. It's definitely a bigger department, but you still always get a faculty member as your advisor. The profs are super smart and really open to talking to students. I personally haven't spent that much time outside of class with profs, though I know people who have, and I wish I had. I'm just shy. The academic requirements aren't too bad. EC is a random requirement though. And science classes for humanities people suck. But education is definitely both for education and job stuff. There's always lots of theory involved.

As it’s sometimes said, Ivy League academics are the reward for kids who worked their asses off in high school. Classes were the liberal arts standard. I will say that the most amazing classes I took were actually in the Humanities department (which isn’t technically a department, since it doesn’t offer any majors—only “certificates”). There’s no journalism major, so the Humanities dept. brings in big-name journalists and writers to have semester-long writing workshops/classes with students (you have to apply to get in, and the biggest names draw the most applications). I ended up taking Narrative Writing with Evan Thomas from Newsweek and Humor Writing with Joel Stein—both were amazing opportunities to work one-on-one with really respected journalists who were just as happy to work with use as we were to work with them. That’s the standard, I guess—professors are usually really invested in their classes because so many of their students are so damn smart. It makes for a vibrant—if sometimes intimidating—academic environment.

As an anthropology major, the majority of my courses were seminars, with about 12 students on average. In these classes, and even my larger courses (except for a few large lecture classes), my professors knew my name and were eager to discuss the material outside of class—a couple of professors invited their students to their homes for a session of the seminar. In the rare large classes I took, there were always small precept meetings outside of the lectures where we discussed the content in more detail, and the preceptors (often graduate students) knew me by name as well. My favorite class was a journalism course with David Maraniss, a former reporter for the Washington Post and now a non-fiction author. Our major assignment was to write a 4,000-word non-fiction narrative, which we had the entire semester to work on. I profiled a janitor at Princeton; for my research, I accompanied her on her morning rounds, spoke with her ex-husband—also a janitor—as well as students and Building Services staff, and visited her home to meet her two sons. Since we had around 10 weeks to work on our pieces, I had the chance to do very thorough research and to edit and re-edit my writing in a way I hadn’t for other classes. My least favorite class was probably multivariable calculus, which went over my head and turned me off of mathematics for the rest of college. However, I did meet one of my best friends in the course, as we wrote notes (high-school style) throughout the lectures. (Maybe that was why I understood so very little…) I’m not sure whether all Princeton students engage intellectually outside of class, but my friends and I definitely did. We were very interested in what we were studying and enjoyed sharing and debating about it with each other. I’ve heard that molecular biology students are fairly competitive, but in my experience, college was completely different than high school, where students constantly asked about each other’s grades. No one knew my marks or SAT scores in college, and I knew none of my friends’, which I loved. Students are very driven and self-competitive, but not cutthroat with each other. The anthropology department is small enough to be personal and large enough to have excellent faculty. I enjoyed everything about it—my courses, my professors, the other anthropology majors, and my independent work. (Junior year, I did my independent research on The Oprah Winfrey Show, studying how she appeals to her viewership; senior year, I studied primary schooling in Uganda, and was funded to live there for a summer. The opportunities in anthropology are limitless.)

Academics at Princeton are, on the whole, outstanding. More so than at any Ivy League school, the undergrads at Princeton have lots of interaction with professors, especially junior and senior year. I'm not just talking about recently hired professors - big-name professors too. Juniors and seniors at Princeton have to complete significant independent research projects (juniors write what we call JPs and seniors write senior theses), and all students are assigned faculty advisors for these projects. My advisors (both of whom are tenured professors) have been great. For both my JPs and my thesis, my advisors have been very responsive to e-mail, willing to meet with me pretty much whenever I want, and have given me thoughtful feedback on my written work. It's a bit harder to get to know professors during freshman and sophomore year, especially if you're taking a lot of big classes, but all professors are required to hold office hours and they're usually happy to talk with undergrads about whatever.

Classes are hard. When people hear you go to Princeton, most assume you're some sort of genius. That may be, but most likely you don't feel like it most of the time when you're at Princeton, because everyone is so academically driven that even Pass/Fail classes aren't a joke. When I came back home after my first semester at Princeton, lots of my friends at other schools were talking about how much easier college was compared with high school. Unless you went to a ridiculously tough high school, this will probably not be the case at Princeton. Given the academic rigor, Princeton students do study a lot, partly because of the amount of work their given, and partly because most of them just seem to be ambitious, driven individuals. There are tons of libraries on campus (and the library system is immense/impressive...students here definitely take it for granted) and students can also be found studying in dorm common areas, cafes, and the campus center. On average most students work 3-5 hours per night, but sometimes less, sometimes more. A lot depends on your major. Humanities students tend to have lots of reading, often seemingly impossible to complete, whereas science major usually have lab reports and problem sets. Finals take place after winter break, with a week's reading period and then two weeks for exams. This can be a stressful period, but it's great having to class to focus on finals work. It is easy to forget a lot over winter break though. The student/professor relationship is generally very positive, and becomes more personal when you begin to focus in on your preferred department for a major or certificate (the Princeton equivalent of a minor). While there are many large intro classes, there are also plenty of smaller seminars, and these are usually the majority once you get past the intro levels. The large classes usually break into what's called precept once a week, a one hour small discussion group to cover the material in a smaller setting, led by a TA or the professor. This is good to keep you from getting lost in large classes, but it also means you can't totally zone out in these, because you'll be expected to contribute to precept discussion, which makes up a part of your class grade. Popular majors are always Politics, Woodrow Wilson School, Economics, and History, and these are all stellar departments. All of the smaller departments have awesome faculty as well though, and students sometimes benefit from the extra attention they can get from majoring in a less common field, especially when it comes time for the two JPs (junior papers) and the daunting senior thesis they must complete before graduation. You don't have to declare a major until sophomore spring, which is great for those like me who enter Princeton clueless as to their academic goals. I've settled on Comparative Literature, because it has the potential to incorporate many of my interests, such as foreign language, translation, creative writing, literature, film, and art. One way to figure out what you're interested in studying is simply by completing the required courses. All freshman have to take a writing seminar, and although most people I know seem to have hated this, my writing seminar, on the culture of consumption, has been one of my favorite classes so far. There's also a foreign language requirement and a number of "distribution requirements," which compel you to take classes in a number of broad categories. The hardest of these to complete for a hardcore humanities person like me are the one Quantitative Reasoning (mostly math classes) and two Science and Technology (with lab!) classes. These are good opportunities to use the four PDF classes you're allotted. I took an Astronomy class like this last spring as my math, and science I got out of the way with Intro to Psych and a class on Lasers I'm currently taking. All in all, the requirements aren't too painful and can introduce you to a new field of interest, or at least provide you with a funny story about bumbling cluelessly through lab. There are many career-driven students on campus (many seem to be aspiring analysts and i-bankers), but probably an equal number like me who still haven't quite figured out what the future holds for them. Even the career-driven seem to branch out and take the opportunity to explore other interests while at Princeton though, so people in your classes usually range from department majors to the random finance student who has always wanted to take a ceramics class. Princeton is quite a competitive place, and getting in is far from the last time you feel the strain of competition. While classes aren't aggressively competitive, the grade deflation policies still give everyone the feeling that its necessary to outperform their peers. Sophomore year, many students compete to get into the Woodrow Wilson foreign policy school. Others compete for summer internships or grants. Even fun at Princeton seems competitive at times. Many extracurricular groups require audition and acceptance--from a capella, dance groups, the business society, and theater, to just being a campus tour guide. In addition, half of the eating clubs that many students join during sophomore year require "bicker" (similar to rush) to gain admittance.

Academics get better every year. You start out as a number in big lecture classes freshmen year, but as you advance, the classes get smaller and smaller. By the time you are a senior, you are on a first name basis with all of your professors, at least in your department. My advisor has invited me to his house several times for dinner, and I've reciprocated with invitations to eating clubs and the dining hall. Every day I have very intellectual conversations with other undergrads, grad students, and faculty. Of course, these are things that one has to seek out, and its easy to just mix in with the crowd, especially in some of the bigger departments. This is definitely a school for smart people. Most classes are very challenging. If you aren't willing to work hard, or you don't feel you have what it takes, then you probably shouldn't be here. That being said, people aren't really that cutthroat (except the pre-meds) as compared to some other schools.

students study so much at princeton. i've often felt like that was the reason that "night life" here starts so much later than at other schools. people will go out at 12 or later because they'll be in the library or their rooms up until 11 trying to pack in weekend work. i think that princeton students are competitive only because they feel they've competed so hard already to get in that they can't give up now. i've avoided caring about other people's grades by never mentioning mine or asking theirs, and i find that i'm not the only person doing that. if i have a problem with the quality of my work or the way my work is being received i go straight to the TA or professor; i don't just complain about it to my friends. on that note, while some classes are really big, i think professors absolutely want to know names. they appreciate when students get in touch with them, even if it is just a grading question. i also love that every professor teaches at least one precept so he/she gets to know a few students more closely over that semester. in many ways the education here is geared toward getting a job, but i'm not sure we can blame princeton for that. in today's world people are just always concerned about money and the future. princeton attempts to combat this with their core curriculum, so that even engineers will encounter a couple of humanities classes over the course of their college career.