Category: Research Life

work-life balance, student experiences, study abroad, extracurricular balance, research confidence, mental health, community

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Conduct Research Research Life

Bridging Research and Political Change

Spotlight on the Summer Internship Project of Princeton Politics Junior Mai Kasemsawade

Mai standing in front of a stage in the Malaysian parliament.
Mai Kasemsawade at the All-Party Parliamentary Group Malaysia for Political Financing meeting at the Malaysian Parliament, which she helped to host with The Institute for Democracy and Economic Affairs.

Many students walk into Princeton intending to change the world, Mai Kasemsawade ’26 is an extraordinary example of how one’s summer research can kickstart global political change. This past summer, Mai worked within the The Institute for Democracy and Economic Affairs in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia as an intern in the Princeton International Internship Program. She connected her interests in political science research and data science to pursue an ambitious project in advancing Malaysia’s laws on funding for political parties in order to encourage a more democratic political scene. Her experience meeting with Malaysian government leaders, hosting a political engagement workshop, writing articles on critical policy, and conducting interdisciplinary research exemplifies the multitude of eye-opening opportunities that a research experience can offer!

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Research Life

Reading for Fun: How and Why

Often when I mention the subject of reading for pleasure’s sake in conversations with other Princeton students, I hear the same story repeated with a twinge of sadness and a sense of resignation to the seemingly-inevitable. Most of us seem to have begun our respective childhoods as avid readers who could barely be seen apart from a book. We enjoyed all sorts of reading, and it was not a tiring task but an exciting opportunity. Over the course of many grueling years of schooling filled with assigned readings and the like, this voracious appetite for literature seems to have been largely snuffed out. If you, like me and many others, have drifted away from the pleasurable pastime of reading for fun and wish that you could regain a bit of that excitement which marked your early years, this article will give a few suggestions for how and why you might go about effecting this turnaround. 

A few books on a bookshelf.

A few books on my shelf in my dorm— not for class.

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Conduct Research Independent Work Present & Publish Findings Research Life

A Guide to Citations

Whether writing a paper or providing a presentation, you will often find yourself relying on the completed work of others to synthesize information about a subject. An essential part of using these outside sources is to give their owners rightful credit in your references! Read some tips below on making citations easier. 

Someone reading an article they would reference if they were doing research on the topic
Citations can be the most dreaded section of your writing. Finish your references with ease using this guide! 
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Get Started with Research Independent Work Research Life

Enhance your Research with Princeton’s Coin Collection

Students at Princeton are fortunate to have access to one of the largest collections of coins anywhere in the United States. Made up of roughly 115,000 items, the collection includes coins, paper money, medals, and other tokens covering almost the entire history of human money— in fact, the university has coins minted in the 6th century BC by Croesus, who is credited with inventing the first system of gold and silver currency. The university’s collection serves many purposes. For example, you may have been in a class which has gone down to Firestone C Floor to look at coins from the time and place you were studying. The coins are also used for exhibitions and workshops. I’m writing here to explain to you how you can use these coins to do great research.

A small gold coin in the photographer's left hand.

Yours truly holding a 1500 year-old coin in Firestone Library

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Research Life

Need a New Place to Study? 4 Niche Study Locations for all Princeton Students!

As I enter my sixth! semester at Princeton, I find myself still asking the age-old question: where should I go and work today? The challenge with finding the right study space is that they’re frequently mood and assignment-specific.

Image of sunset over Princeton Graduate College, golf course, Forbes backyard. Red Adirondack chair in foreground.

View of the Forbes backyard, taken by author.

PCUR alumna Nanako Shirai’s 2018 post on finding study spaces on campus is an incredible resource to help you identify the best study space based on your study needs. In this post, I’ll highlight some additional study spaces you could explore this spring. Instead of going by the type of assignment you’re working on, I’ll share four new suggestions on study spaces based on the kind of study environment you prefer. This might help you choose study spaces at which you could complete multiple items on your to-do list.

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Conduct Research Research Life

My Second Year BSE Fall Experience in the Engineering Sequence and Reflection

After attending my final class of the semester, the feeling that I was done with my BSE requirements finally settled in. From now on, as a COS BSE major, I would have much more flexibility in my class options with my prerequisites complete. Having written both My BSE Fall Semester Experience in the Engineering Sequence and My BSE Spring Semester Experience in the Engineering Sequence (which I recommend you read first before reading this), I wanted to write a final article to reflect on my experience now that I’ve officially completed the Engineering Sequence. To reiterate one last time, the Engineering Sequence is a set of five courses intended to fulfill the engineering degree requirements through an introduction to engineering fundamentals in the context of real-world applications. BSE degree requirements include four semesters of math, two semesters of physics, one semester of chemistry, and every first-year student is required to take one semester of writing seminar and fulfill various distribution requirements for general degree requirements. This semester, I took the final course in the Engineering Sequence, Multivariable Calculus, which means that along with taking chemistry, I have completed my BSE degree requirements.

screenshot of EGR 156
Course Description of EGR 156 for Fall 2023
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Conduct Research Present & Publish Findings Research Life

A Guide to Presentation

Have a presentation for one of your courses and unsure where to start? Or maybe you need to present for a research symposium? During your undergraduate years, you will come across many times when you may have to give a presentation to present your research for coursework or perhaps for an individual research pursuit. Here are some tips to help you present easily and effectively! 

individual giving a presentation to an audience
Give the most nerve-free presentation with these tips!
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Conduct Research Research Life Resources

Applying to Summer Programs

Quincy Monday ‘23 sitting in a chair working on his laptop in the lobby of New College West
Fortunately, if you’re stressed out trying to write all of these summer program applications, Princeton has plenty of comfortable study spaces to be working, like Quincy Monday ’23 in the lobby of NCW. Photo Credits: Dan Komoda (2023)

Applying to summer programs can seem like a daunting task when you may not even know what you want to do next summer. The busyness of the semester certainly hasn’t created a ton of time to be thinking about these things! Fortunately, winter break is a great time to work on applications to summer programs, as many of the earlier applications are often due early in the year. Having prepared them beforehand can ease a lot of stress, since the middle of the spring semester isn’t the most convenient time to be starting these applications. These timelines can vary by field, so it could be a bit different based on the type of program you are applying to—the career center has a great timeline of internship recruitment that is sorted by field so you can see the differences. Regardless, it’s great to work on these during the break when you don’t have courses.

You may be looking for something far away, here in Princeton, an industry internship at a company, or a research program at a university. Regardless of if you know exactly what you want to do or still aren’t sure, here are some tips to help you sort through this process.

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Conduct Research Research Life

A Guide to Tackling a Research Journal

Whether you’re jumping onto the wagon of a research project or are pursuing a research assignment in a course, professors will often assign readings of journal articles as a way to familiarize students with ongoing research in the field. However, for newcomers to a topic, tackling the understanding of a literature review can often be difficult with the influx of new vocabulary and complex, dense information on the topic all at once. Here are some tips on how you can tackle the difficulty of journal reading. 

Picture of someone writing. that is meant to represent annotations while dissecting a research journal.
Reading a research journal and understanding its key points can be achieved with just a few tips of advice! 
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Conduct Research Independent Work Research Life

Reading Courses: A Guide

As course selection begins, you might find yourself searching endlessly through the Course Offerings webpage, trying to craft the perfect schedule for next semester. You’re probably weighing a number of different factors— the professor, the class topic, the reading list, the different requirements it fulfills— and trying to balance these in the best way possible.There is another possibility here, which you can’t find in the course offerings: reading courses. Not advertised on department websites or listed with course offerings, reading courses are some of Princeton’s hidden academic gems. The University defines a reading course as a specially designed course not normally offered as part of the curriculum that is arranged between a student and a faculty member. These courses count for academic credit, and focus on a topic of the student’s choosing. If you’ve ever dreamed about designing your own course, this is your opportunity.

Students walk across McCosh Courtyard at Princeton University.

McCosh Courtyard in November

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