Student Life

Reading for Fun: How and Why

Posted on April 12, 2024April 8, 2024 by Shane Patrick

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 my shelf in my dorm— not for class.

A Guide to Citations

Posted on March 20, 2024March 20, 2024 by Rebecca Cho

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!*

Enhance your Research with Princeton’s Coin Collection

Posted on February 28, 2024February 26, 2024 by Shane Patrick

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

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

Posted on February 23, 2024February 20, 2024 by Alexis Wu

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.

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

Posted on December 15, 2023December 12, 2023 by Shannon Yeow

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*

A Guide to Presentation

Posted on December 13, 2023December 12, 2023 by Rebecca Cho

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!*

A Guide to Tackling a Research Journal

Posted on December 1, 2023November 27, 2023 by Rebecca Cho

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!*

Reading Courses: A Guide

Posted on November 29, 2023November 21, 2023 by Shane Patrick

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

TigerJunction vs ReCal: How I Plan My Courses for the Next Semester

Posted on November 27, 2023November 27, 2023 by Shannon Yeow

TigerJunction Logo

It’s always a mixed bag of emotions when it comes to course selection. Personally, I find the period between when the next semester’s courses are released and before the course selection date to be especially fun—I can play around with the different ideal schedules (potentially having no-class Fridays and no night classes), look ahead to the rest of the courses that I’ll be taking during my time here, and discover new classes. Whether people end up choosing to take classes to fulfill requirements, classes that interest them, or classes that could teach them important skills, an important aspect in choosing courses for the upcoming semester is course planning. TigerApps is a group of student developers that builds apps to improve the campus life experience for Princeton students. One of the TigerApps created is ReCal, which is the most popular way to aid in course planning and ensure a smooth process for course selection. Recently, TigerJunction ReCal+, an application for course planning inspired by ReCal and designed to be an “improved” version, has made its rounds among students. As course selection season is upon us, I wanted to take the opportunity to show how I plan my courses for the next semester and provide an in-depth comparison between ReCal and TigerJunction ReCal+ to inform how other students plan their courses for the upcoming semesters.

In a Mid-Semester Slump? Here are Five Tips to Bounce Back from Burnout

Posted on November 22, 2023November 21, 2023 by Kate Weseley-Jones

Unfortunately, many of us will experience burnout sometime during our four years here at Princeton. For those of you who may not have heard this term before, the definition is in its name: burnout involves losing that spark of motivation that previously might have kept you pushing forward through your workload. Keep in mind that burnout is distinct from things like anxiety or depression that may also be impacting your academic performance in a similar way. If you think you are struggling with these instead, you can contact Princeton’s Counseling and Psychological Services (CPS) to seek longer-term professional help. They also offer urgent consultations for more immediate situations. Burnout specifically deals much more with the ebbs and flows that can happen as stress builds over the course of a semester. Thankfully, there are many ways to combat and minimize the negative effects of burnout. If you have a few overdue assignments, slept through a few lectures, or just generally feel you are not quite as on top of things as you may have been when the semester began, here are some of my tips for getting out of an academic slump.

Photo of girl sitting on grass, leaning against bench, face covered by open textbook. — *These tips might be of use if you’re having a particularly tiring week!*

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