Charlie Metzger '12: I had the incredible opportunity to take a freshman seminar with Professor Cornel West,
Charlie Metzger '12: so for three hours a week 15 other freshmen and I spent time with probably the most influential
Charlie Metzger '12: African-American public intellectual in the world. It was just a mind-blowing educational
Charlie Metzger '12: experience. I think the most uniquely Princeton experience I've had so far didn't actually
Charlie Metzger '12: happen here. It happened on the other side of the world in Vietnam. I had the chance
Charlie Metzger '12: to study in Hanoi last summer for seven weeks on a program run by the Princeton Institute
Charlie Metzger '12: for International and Regional Studies with 14 other Princetonians. We went with
Charlie Metzger '12: three professors -- one of which is a huge superstar in the East Asian Studies Department, and
Charlie Metzger '12: the other of which is a Princeton alum who single-handedly reopened the embassy in 1995.
Charlie Metzger '12: It really made me realize how incredibly lucky I am to go to a school like this where opportunities
Charlie Metzger '12: like that can happen.
Paavana Kumar '10: One of the reasons I came to Princeton was to be able to concentrate on music more, and
Paavana Kumar '10: to be able to hone my skills as a singer and a pianist. Things I've really enjoyed have
Paavana Kumar '10: been to sing with the Glee Club and the Chamber Choir. They've had really great performance
Paavana Kumar '10: opportunities. I've been able to sing in Richardson Auditorium here and to tour other
Paavana Kumar '10: places like Buenos Aires. I've also toured to Ireland and Los Angeles with my a cappella
Paavana Kumar '10: group, which was a really great experience. The most exciting experience I've had really
Paavana Kumar '10: has been to do with the independent work I've been able to do, which I know is something
Paavana Kumar '10: that sets Princeton apart from other colleges. So for me I came to Princeton because I wanted
Paavana Kumar '10: to study more in the fields of literature, in the fields of language. I'm also really
Paavana Kumar '10: interested in music, so I'm writing a senior thesis that has to do with the kind of intersection
Paavana Kumar '10: between music and literature, and music as narrative strategy, which is really kind of my dream thesis.
Eric Plummer '10: The J.P. and the thesis -- those two projects are where you figure out what you're passionate about.
Eric Plummer '10: Because you can't write a hundred pages or 30 pages for your J.P. on something
Eric Plummer '10: that you don't care about. That's when you learn the most about yourself, when you're
Eric Plummer '10: writing your J.P. and your thesis. The happiest surprise was just that the people are who
Eric Plummer '10: they are, I guess, that I wasn't coming into an environment where I was the only person
Eric Plummer '10: like me. It's a school for all of us. Because you can get the books and the education at
Eric Plummer '10: almost any institution in the country, but at the end of the day, the people that Princeton
Eric Plummer '10: picks to be here are some of the brightest, most talented, people who help you become a better you.
Ana Gonzalez '11: Participating in a civic action service trip run through the Pace Center. I applied and
Ana Gonzalez '11: was accepted to participate in a trip to the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota.
Ana Gonzalez '11: It honestly was one of the most amazing experiences in my life. There was no other place I would
Ana Gonzalez '11: have rather been over fall break. It was beautiful to be able to apply so much of what we learned
Ana Gonzalez '11: in our classrooms here at Princeton. We're learning about theories, and we're reading
Ana Gonzalez '11: about people, reading about cultures, and to be able to engage a culture and a people
Ana Gonzalez '11: and offer them some help. We did a lot of grantwriting proposals. It was a glimpse of
Ana Gonzalez '11: what Princeton hopes to prepare us for. I want to be more involved with the Pace Center
Ana Gonzalez '11: now because of my trip.
Mike Yaroshefsky '12: Running for student body president. It was a pretty remarkable experience, especially
Mike Yaroshefsky '12: the door-to-door campaigning. Being able to go and see 70 percent of campus is something
Mike Yaroshefsky '12: that I otherwise would not have been able to do. One of the great things is that I had
Mike Yaroshefsky '12: a great group of friends who were able to support me through the entire campaign -- just
Mike Yaroshefsky '12: tons of great people helping me out along the way, and that's why I was able to do
Mike Yaroshefsky '12: it, because I had the help and I had people behind me saying, "Just go for it, Yaro,
Mike Yaroshefsky '12: you've got this, just do it!" Now that I've taken office, I feel a tremendous amount of
Mike Yaroshefsky '12: responsibility. I'm an engineer at heart, so a great perk of the job is that I get to
Mike Yaroshefsky '12: see the inner workings of the student government and the University, and then I get to try
Mike Yaroshefsky '12: to make things run more smoothly.
Melinda Baldwin GS: I think what a lot of people don't realize about graduate school is that it is a full-time
Melinda Baldwin GS: job, and if you don't treat it that way, it's going to be really hard to finish your Ph.D.
Melinda Baldwin GS: Being a graduate student is really nothing like being an undergraduate. It's much more
Melinda Baldwin GS: like being an apprentice professor. One of the reasons I was really drawn to Princeton
Melinda Baldwin GS: history is because of the very generous funding package that they're able to put together.
Melinda Baldwin GS: I liked that Princeton didn't think of us as cheap labor. I like that Princeton thought
Melinda Baldwin GS: of us as people who were going to go on to careers beyond graduate school and realized
Melinda Baldwin GS: that the goal was to turn out people who would go on to successful future academic careers.
Melinda Baldwin GS: And I thought that Princeton history did a really good job of recognizing why we were
Melinda Baldwin GS: there, what we wanted out of it, and how they could help us get there.