On campus, Nal Xaviera ’25 is a member of Engineers Without Borders: Kenya, Community House After School Programs, and an assistant for the Visual Resources Department.
College is a wonderful place to explore your interests. It’s a time to meet new people, engage with different disciplines, and explore what you’re truly curious about. Perhaps one of the most apt examples of such opportunities is the Office of International Programs’s International Internship Program (IIP).
Whether it’s to look at a comet in the middle of the night or to hang out with friends, you should always find time to step away from your thesis and take everything in during your last few months on campus. Photo Credit: Ryan Champeau
Everyone has heard of the spooky ~senior thesis~ since the second that they stepped on campus for their official Princeton tour. It may feel far away at the time, but trust me, coming from a second semester senior, it comes around quicker than you expect. I am currently in the writing process, but it has been a long journey even getting to this point. Surprisingly, though, I have loved writing my thesis. It does not feel like work because it is a topic that I am truly passionate about. My goal for my final PCUR posts is to walk you through my thesis journey to hopefully make you feel better about yours. This post will start with one of the first steps of the thesis process: finding an adviser.
Applying to summer internships shouldn’t have to be stressful. Photo Credit: Bram Naus
As spring semester has arrived, the ever-expanding workload is not the only thing that students have on their minds. With application deadlines extending from now until late March or April, it is the time of year that we start thinking about where, and how, we will apply to summer internships, research opportunities, fellowships, and more. One perk of attending Princeton is that countless summer opportunities are made available to us and (bonus!) oftentimes many of the logistics (housing, payment, etc) are figured out by Princeton beforehand. But, this list can be daunting. Even figuring out which internships to apply to can be challenging, let alone how to best fill out their applications. We may feel like we just don’t have the time to think through our summer plans before we embark on them—but, trust me, some careful planning can make the difference between a life-changing internship and a bummer summer. So, I’ve compiled a short list of the best, time-efficient strategies for finding and applying to internships which are truly meaningful for you.
Before you get to the research itself, let’s talk applications! (Photo Credit, Danielle Alio)
We know, we know, it’s winter (well, for the Northern hemisphere at least)! Even though there may be snow outside your window, applications for summer research internships are coming due soon. Before you can dive into an archive, travel into the field, interview your participants, suit up for the lab, or more, you’ll want to think about how you can get a full-time, funded summer research internship. Let’s take a look back at what PCURs over the years have advised!
Students hard at work at a previous year’s Senior Thesis Bootcamp! (Photo Credit, Denise Applewhite)
As this is posted, many Princeton students are hard at work on their senior theses. Some are on campus right now participating in the residential colleges’ wintersession Senior Thesis Bootcamps. PCURs over the years have written extensively on this very important Princeton milestone. Browse through the posts below if you’ll be writing your thesis soon, are writing it right now, or maybe should be writing now.
Campus is quieter during wintersession, but there’s still plenty to do! (Photo Credit, Denise Applewhite)
Ryan closed us off in December with a wonderful post about different ways you can schedule (or not schedule) your time over winter break. To her work, we’d like to invite you to take a look back at some other posts on how you might build research, restoration, and recreation (of the educational kind) into your winter break. Check out the posts below!
Greetings, all! We hope you’ve enjoyed the blog over the past semester. Brand new content is temporarily paused until our correspondents return from winter break, but we wanted to invite you to engage with the site during that time and we have a few ways you can do so below!
The outdoor food festival takes place on Prospect at the end of Wintersession. From donuts to skiing to iFly, you should definitely check it all out!
Winter break is long and much-needed. It is a time to relax, rejuvenate, and reflect on the semester. In this post, I will give advice on how to make the most of the next few months, but I recognize that you know yourself best and should choose to spend your break in whatever way makes you happiest. Without further ado, here are my takeaways from the last 3 winter breaks:
How I feel trying to pick classes at the crack of dawn every semester
If you’re anything like me, course selection is a perfect storm of stress and chaos. It’s at the crack of dawn for some reason, TigerHub feels like it was designed on Microsoft Word, and you are making decisions that have a direct impact on your future. And sometimes it all goes wrong. Seeing that big red X on a course you really wanted to join may be disheartening, but it is not the end of the world! I am here to offer some advice for surviving the magical solution to all your course selection woes: add-drop period.
While reading Ryan’s recent post about dean’s date traditions and reading period excitement, I started thinking back to all of the things I wish I did differently during my first reading period. Today, I want to approach the same topic of reading period, but from a slightly less exciting (although necessary) angle: how to actually buckle down and stay productive when studying for finals. Unlike fall finals last year, reading period this December will be fully on campus, and for most of us, won’t require navigating studying from home. Here’s some of my advice for how to take full advantage of reading period for a strong end to the semester.
