A Problem Set I’ll Never Forget: My Journey to Creative Thinking

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Problem 5 on my problem set was about distributing a pile of stones across vertices of a pentagon.
Problem 5 on my problem set was about distributing a pile of stones across vertices of a pentagon.

Creativity is something I’ve struggled with my entire life. Being the son of two architects, I was always expected to develop some sort of creative talent – even at a young age. Sadly, this talent never manifested itself, especially not in building design (I figured that out when my 2nd grade classmates labeled my gingerbread house as the ‘ugliest’ at a holiday party).

I learned very early in my life that I was more of an analytical and methodological person. While I wasn’t creative, I could follow a set of clear-cut instructions. I liked classes like math where everything had definitive answers. I enjoyed playing sports like tennis where mastery of a specific set of techniques defines what it means to be a good player. But when given the freedom to be creative, I used to panic. The music I composed for my piano class sounded awful. My dancing skills were subpar let alone my ability to choreograph. And I couldn’t write creatively no matter how hard I tried.

Then one day in high school, my entire perspective changed. Continue reading A Problem Set I’ll Never Forget: My Journey to Creative Thinking

Doodling in the Lab

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The doodles appear everywhere: on whiteboards, on lab notebooks, even on the autoclave tape. Impeccably shaded line drawings of a-helices, the protein structure nearly everyone in the lab works with.  The “culprit”? Ann, the senior grad student in our lab. Her artistic skill is rare, or at least perceived as rare, in science. Rare enough that Grant, one of the post-docs in the lab, complains, besides a few exceptions, science is “full of nerds”, by which he means those without any creativity or broad interest. And that rarity is a shame, because science needs creativity. This isn’t just about a desire for amusing doodles, it’s about building a scientific community full of clear, intuitive thinkers who can communicate their discoveries.

AutoclaveTape
This isn’t quite what’s usually meant by “biochemistry is more art than science”

Once upon a time, the protein-chemistry lore goes, everyone needed some artistic flair. Indeed, Jane Richardson, under whom my thesis adviser did his postdoc, is known as much for her artistic skill – hand-drawing so many diagrams of proteins in her field-defining papers that modern visualization software still largely uses the conventions she developed – as for her considerable scientific talent.

Now, due to that same software, and other software for visualizing other sorts of data, rapid and clean images of nearly any process, relationship, or other data are merely a few lines of code away. But when the graphics are automatically created with software, rather than by-hand, something is lost.  It’s all-too easy to let visualization software become a crutch by presenting colorful pictures without paying mind to the aesthetic or narrative considerations of the medium. Continue reading Doodling in the Lab

An Ode to Academic Free Time

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This summer, in the unlikely sleepy town of Selianitika, Greece, I had an unforgettable immersive learning experience. I applied to the Paideia Institute’s Living Greek in Greece program, devoted to immersion in Ancient Greek, at the urging of a friend. It would be perspective-changing, she said. Instead of running between classes and juggling ten different assignments at once, I would have one task–to grow comfortable with Ancient Greek–and an incredible amount of free time.

The Selianitika coastline, where I walked every day during my time in Greece!

It was a perspective-changing shift from my Princeton experience. I often feel limited by the lack of time available to fully experience the overwhelming material in my classes on campus. Beyond my Indo-European linguistics class, I want to browse through the Classics section of the library to see what I can find. In my computer science course, I want to do the optional exercises and play around with code. But independent exploration and extra-curricular learning can be hard to make time for, and I often end up working from one assignment to the next. Breadth and depth are challenging to achieve together.

Continue reading An Ode to Academic Free Time

Pulling the Boat

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The water was so clear I could see the coral colonies on the reef below the boat. From dark clouds in the south, I heard a rumble of thunder. Dylan, our boat captain, eyed the horizon. “It’s okay for now,” he said.

Photo by Zoe Sims
My field site on a sunnier day, photographed from shore.

I had come to Bermuda for two weeks of fieldwork: collecting water samples showing the effects of groundwater discharge on the reef, and assessing its impact on coral colonies nearby. I had two weeks to bring together the essence of my summer research project. Sun or storm, out we went.

On this particular day, I was collecting water samples with Tori, a Princeton grad student, and assisting two divers as they sampled the coral colonies.

Donning my snorkel and fins, I swam over to check on the divers. I was underwater, watching them carefully extract a coral sample, when it started raining. From below, I watched the water’s vast expanse erupt in a textured tessellation, repeated as far as I could see. Those first moments of that day’s downpour are one of my summer’s most transcendent memories.

Photo by Anne Cohen
Getting to work at my field site in Tynes Bay, Bermuda.

Perhaps I also remember that moment so vividly because of the chaos that followed.

Continue reading Pulling the Boat

Uncovering Research Opportunities with an Impact Beyond the Classroom

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As Princeton students, we all know that our classes offer many amazing opportunities for personal advancement, but we often do not recognize how certain classes can grant us opportunities to contribute to a greater community as well. I was fortunate enough to take such a class as early as my first semester at Princeton, when I enrolled in a Freshman Seminar entitled Philanthropy: Can we Save the World Through Generosity? The topic of this course—the work of foundations and nonprofits—was fascinating, and the method of learning was truly unique. In hopes of instilling a passion for philanthropy amongst Princeton students, a generous alumnus gave a grant of $50,000 to our class. He charged us with the responsibility of donating the grant to non-profits of our choice and learning about philanthropy through that process.

Continue reading Uncovering Research Opportunities with an Impact Beyond the Classroom

Correspondent Convos: Why do you enjoy research?

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Correspondent_Convos_IconAs the semester rolls on, it can be difficult to get excited about your research projects or independent work.  You may be tempted to view an upcoming assignment as just another addition to your busy schedule – but that line of thinking zaps your energy before you even start.  Now is a good time to remember the things you enjoy about research.  And yes, there are things you enjoy about research.  Watch PCUR weigh in on the most exciting moments of independent work, and make sure to stay pumped for your next project.

— Melissa Parnagian, Chief Correspondent

Why I decided to apply to grad school

Posted on by Stacey Huang

Applying to graduate school may seem like a natural choice for many people — is it right for you too?

I’m going to be honest: I had originally never intended to apply to graduate school. In fact, one of my many reasons for studying engineering in college was straightforward, if not overly simplistic: an engineering degree, I believed, could land me a relatively good job without having to pursue a graduate degree. I didn’t want to take another standardized test, and above all, I didn’t feel like I would enjoy research. Rather than theory, I preferred engineering and building things, and I wasn’t convinced that was what people with graduate degrees went on to do.

The summer after my freshman year was when I first started to reconsider my decision not to continue with higher education. I got the opportunity to participate in a Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) at Rice University that summer, helping to develop optical sensors. I knew nothing about the field prior to that, but spending the summer surrounded by enthusiastic PhD candidates was enough to make me reconsider that a graduate degree in an engineering discipline was useless. It helped that optics is such a deep and convoluted field that requires a good deal of physics knowledge to navigate well — it convinced me that in certain cases, it certainly does make sense to obtain extra training and background even if the end goal is to engineer systems. Continue reading Why I decided to apply to grad school

PCUR podcasts are here!

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Whether you read PCUR from your laptop or from your phone, neither option is particularly useful when you’re on the go. Why? Reading and walking usually don’t mix. But listening and walking go hand in hand, which you probably know from blasting your playlist on the way to class. PCUR wants a spot on that morning playlist: We’ve just launched our very own podcasts, perfect for those times when reading isn’t an option. Listening to our brief, informal conversations will start your day on a good note.

Check out the first podcast now – it’s an interview with a Rutgers Psychology major turned Master’s candidate in K-6 education, who happens to be my sister.  How did independent work influence her journey? Listen below to find out.

 

— Melissa Parnagian, Chief Correspondent

A Summer of System Change

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Selecting candidates for the fellowship isn't exactly easy - just ask panelist Shanti Raghavan (pictured)
The Ashoka India Selection Panel. Selecting candidates for the fellowship wasn’t exactly a serene process – just ask panelist Shanti Raghavan (standing).

“Sorry Kavi, I don’t think they’re a fit for our fellowship. Their proposals are not system-changing”.

I received this disappointing message countless times this summer while interning at Ashoka, a global non-profit organization committed to the spread of social entrepreneurship. Working out of the India office in the beautiful city of Bangalore, I was responsible for interviewing recently-nominated social entrepreneurs interested in Ashoka’s fellowship program. The program helps connect these select individuals with other fellows, resources, and tools to help further their work in the social space.

Every candidate I had championed was rejected on the basis of this lack of “system change” in their envisioned work. This confused me because each of these candidates was immensely successful in their field. Furthermore, their repeated denial was personally frustrating because when I talked to these candidates, I became personally tied to their work. One particular instance stands out to me. About a month into my internship, I had to reject a candidate who was educating adolescent village girls on gender equality issues through group-based discussions she secretly held in their college dorms. A day after I sent my report to my supervisors, I was unnerved to see the “not a fit” email in my inbox.

Continue reading A Summer of System Change

Open Questions, Surprising Answers: Venturing into the Unknown

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We’ve all been taught the importance of putting our research in context. For me, when I took SPA 230 — Contemporary Spain in Context — this “context” took the form of a fully funded Spring Break trip to Madrid and Barcelona, during which each student was required to perform field research on a topic of choice.

When I first set foot in Spain, I had a two questions in mind: How has theater in Spain been able to survive the nation’s economic crisis? Why, in times of crisis, is theater important?

Studying the theater of the Spanish economic crisis, I saw multiple shows and interviewed actors, directors, founders of theater companies, and other theater professionals. While I started the research process with the above questions firmly constructed, I found that my most exciting, surprising discoveries came when my fieldwork forced me to shift my focus and expand to incorporate the unforeseen.

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Out to lunch with actors from Los Absurdos Teatro, an alternative theater company in Madrid.

Continue reading Open Questions, Surprising Answers: Venturing into the Unknown