With course selection coming around the corner, the sheer number of opportunities can be overwhelming. Choosing courses can be doubly challenging for rising sophomores who are finishing up their prerequisite courses and trying to figure out what they even want to major in. I wanted to take this opportunity to introduce a new and exciting opportunity for students interested in research—the Sophomore Research Seminars.
As someone who has loved museums for as long as I can remember, it feels heretical to even admit that my own brother considers most museums to be boring. The older sister in me has not let this go easily, and, in fact, I’ve been practicing my art of persuasion through getting my friends and family into museums even when they are hesitant. If you, too, are hoping to convince someone to join you at a museum or maybe are looking for a way to get more out of museums yourself, here is some of my hard-earned advice.
From March 19 to 22, 2023, I was at the 13th U.S. National Combustion Meeting presenting a research poster. My work was titled, “Deep Learning Modeling of the Filtered Generalized Progress Variable Dissipation Rate in Turbulent Premixed Combustion”. In my junior year, as I was planning what to work on for my thesis and what goals I hoped to attain, I determined that I wanted to go the extra mile in my research, enough to be able to go to an academic conference. With some hard work, the patient guidance of my adviser Prof. Michael Mueller, the support from my labmates at the Computational Turbulent Reacting Flow Lab, and the funding from several sources (MAE, CST, OUR, and ACEE), I was able to attend this conference! This was my first research conference, and I cannot overstate how valuable this experience has been to my growth as a researcher.
Agnes presenting her poster at the 13th U.S. National Combustion Meeting
PPP’s 2019 “Perspective Polaroids.” Students took polaroid photos and wrote down a reminder for themselves of the things and people they care about.
I’m extremely excited to introduce PCUR’s 2023 seasonal series—a collaboration between PCUR and the Princeton Perspective Project (PPP). To start the series, I wanted to introduce PPP and why the two teams are working together this April.
We may have wasted no time getting back into the semester after spring break, but just two weeks ago, I was exploring Denmark as a part of the class “Making the Viking Age.” This trip marks the second time I have been lucky enough to travel internationally as part of a class here at Princeton; last fall, I also visited Rome as a part of a group of students who took the Western Humanities Sequence during our first year. With course selection just around the corner, I highly recommend keeping an eye out for courses that include travel, as they have been some of the most academically enriching experiences I have had in all my education thus far.
Summer may not always go as planned. How can you make the most of an unexpected experience?
“So, what are your plans this summer?”
With summer break a mere two months away, it seems talk of summer plans finds its way into more and more conversations. The question seems simple enough: it may just be someone’s attempt to sow common ground, find a housing buddy, or even vent their own frustrations in the summer internship search.
Spring is always a rollercoaster of a semester. We have just about 6 more weeks of school before spring classes are over! Before you know it, you will be a senior and will have to start thinking about the big T – thesis. I recommend you take a little bit of time to think about your thesis – maybe you’ve already started after reading Ryan’s great post around choosing a topic. You don’t have to have all of the answers right away, but at least you would already have given it a bit of thought and let your ideas brew at the back of your mind.
Top (from left to right): Ryan Champeau, Virginia Cobbs, Amaya Dressler; Bottom (from left to right): Agnes Robang, Kate Weseley-Jones, Alexis Wu
Want a great way to connect with the Princeton research community, meet new friends, and earn some money along the way? Join PCUR! If you’re reading this article, chances are you would be perfect for the job, but don’t hesitate to share this post with folks you think might be interested!
The first snow of the semester indicates that senior thesis season is upon us!!!!!
Senior thesis. Senior thesis. Senior thesis. By this time of year, you have most likely heard seniors in the middle of the night at Firestone or at Coffee Club study breaks, thinking about, stressing about, and working on their senior thesis. In my last post, I wrote about one of the first and most important steps of the senior thesis process, choosing the right adviser (see here). Now, I walk through what I believe to be another pivotal moment for the senior thesis process: choosing a topic. For SPIA majors and presumably for many other majors as well, it may seem difficult to narrow down your project to one specific topic when the major is so broad and diverse. Throughout my time at Princeton, I have taken classes in law, environmental policy, psychology, economics, ethics and more, and I enjoyed them all. But, I eventually had to choose one topic to write a full thesis on. So, without further ado, here are some steps on choosing the right topic for you.
The start of a new semester can be an adjustment, especially after a long and relaxing break. In the spring, I often end up feeling overwhelmed by internship applications, which Amaya recently wrote about. A few weeks ago, though, I found myself overwhelmed in a far more positive manner; I came back to campus early this year for Wintersession, and was amazed by the huge selection of opportunities both on and off campus. Wintersession is a recent Princeton initiative, giving students the chance to teach and participate in workshops, classes, and trips during the last two weeks of winter break. This past Wintersession, some of the offerings included a class on blacksmithing and a skiing trip. Free, short-term programs are the perfect chance to step out of your learning comfort zone. A particularly engaging class could spark your interest in an unfamiliar (or even underexplored!) topic, opening up new avenues for potential research.
