<p>How about music lessons for beginners? Could you easily take non-expensive flute lessons even though you don't know the first thing about it?</p>
<p>I have several questions:</p>
<p>1- What are living situations like?
2- How accessible are on-campus jobs?
3- Is campus and surrounding town GLBT friendly?
4- What do you like about Princeton, in your experience?
5- What is the one thing you most dislike about Princeton?</p>
<p>Thanks :)</p>
<p>sorry, didn't read mzhang23's post above :)</p>
<p>so in short, can you be out and be comfortable at Pton at the same time?</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Depending on which college you live in, you can be in anything from a single to an 11 person suite (although these are really rare). On your housing form, you will be asked how many roommates you want. Although housing doesn't seem to pay a lot of attention to your preference, if you say you want a single or double, you probably won't get a larger room than a quad, and if you say you want six or seven roommataes, you won't get a smaller room than a quad. Quads are generally two bedrooms anad a common room. The suites can either be a group of rooms with a common room or rooms connected by a hallway.</p></li>
<li><p>Pretty accessible. Dining services and the libraray system are two virtual guarantees.</p></li>
<li><p>I'm not the best person to anaswer this one, but I'll try. From my perspective, it seems like the GLBT community is pretty small, but present. I do know a couple of out gay students, and they seem to be comfortable. From the perspective of dating, your options may be more limited than at other schools. Since the campus is conservative for an Ivy, you are more likely to confront people who aren't friendly to the GLBT lifestyle, as mzhang mentioned. However, I feel that the vast majority of students, even those conservative politically, don't pass judgment on people's personal lives. Recently, there was a big issue concerning whether or not the USG should sign onto an amicus brief supporting gay marriage. The question was put to student referendum. Ultimately, while only about 51 % of students voted to have the USG sign on, almost 75 % of students said that they supported gay marriagae. I would imagine that a greater number support civil unions.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>To be honest, if you were asking about Pton vs. Yale, I would probably tell you to go to Yale. But looking at your post history, the only other school you mention is Cornell, which isn't known as a bastion of leftist thought, either. If your choice is Pton and Cornell, I think you can feel comfotabale coming to Princeton and expecting a generally welcoming environment.</p>
<p>Being an out student at Princeton, I can say that I was initially really disappointed in the university. I thought the community was really small, and while everyone has been incredibly accepting (which is much appreciated, believe me), I felt like a large part of my social life was missing. However, as time has worn on, I've discovered so many people who are out (or even not out) but just not very visible on campus. You'd be surprised how many GLBT people are on campus. I've either run across or heard of through friends many more than I expected when I matriculated.</p>
<p>You don't have to feel uncomfortable at all. True, there are some who may not accept your lifestyle, but generally everyone's really respectful. It's really cool to see people walking around with "Gay? Fine by me" t-shirts in support of their GLBT classmates. So yeah, don't even worry about that.</p>
<p>1- What are living situations like? Covered above
2- How accessible are on-campus jobs? Didn't have a job. Had a number of friends with jobs. They seemed to have no problems finding work.
3- Is campus and surrounding town GLBT friendly? Coming from San Francisco, I was disappointed in Princeton in this regard. I'm straight, but having a number of gay friends, both on and off Princeton campus, I feel very strongly about the issue and was thus disturbed by the Prince article a few days back which reported that GLBT posters were torn down en masse on campus.... However, like philntex, I know a number of GLBT on campus. There are definitely a lot of us who support the community, just maybe not as much as at other Brown, Yale, etc.
4- What do you like about Princeton, in your experience? HUGE amount of faculty support. They lavish you with attention. For example, just last night, I emailed my academic advisor a question, and by the time I woke up this morning, she had made a response, contacted my dean about the issue, who also had left me with a lengthy email answering my academic questions. I am on medical leave for the spring semester, and when I made the decision to withdraw during the fall semester for my health, the university bent over backwards to support me. Even while I'm back home, my Japanese professor has kept in touch with weekly, if not daily emails.... When I share this with my high school friends now at other universities, they always express envy as they don't get nearly as much attention.
5- What is the one thing you most dislike about Princeton? The social life. There's not enough diversity of activities on campus, at least, I couldn't find suficient outlets during my fall semester as a freshman. I can't drink for medical related reasons and unfortunately, this severely limited my social options. However, you can combat this by joining a wide range of activities. You might not find your best buddies in the first few groups you join, but eventually something should click. At first I thought I was the only one who felt lonely, but after having a number of frank conversations with students, including those who I thought were having the time of their lives at Princeton, I learned a significant number of students feel the same way. This should improve as time goes on, however, and your social network expands.</p>
<p>Whoops, forgot the other questions, hah.</p>
<p>2- How accessible are on-campus jobs?
There are a lot of open houses during Frosh Week. I knew from the get-go that I wanted to work in the Language Resource Center, so I went to their open house and immediately got the job. The application/interview process is really lax, and there are a lot of different job opportunities throughout the year. There are definitely more options available for work-study students (I still can't figure out why I'm not one), but even if you aren't, there are plenty of places to work (both on and off campus).</p>
<p>4- What do you like about Princeton, in your experience?
I love the diversity of options in everything at Princeton. Socially, you can choose from the arts scene, NY/Philly, the eating clubs, room parties, movie nights, etc etc etc; residentially, you have the colleges, upperclass housing, independent housing, co-ops; academically, you have a number of different approaches to doing your JPs and thesis, myriad certificates, a comparatively open curriculum; and extracurricularly, the number of groups is endless. You're really humbled here when you realize you're no longer at the top of your class. But having so many options really helps to keep you honest: if you see one thing doesn't work for you, you keep trying out different things until you find what really works for you.</p>
<p>5- What is the one thing you most dislike about Princeton?
I'm not the biggest fan of the town. I mean, it's gorgeous, and on spring days like the ones we've been having, it's so cute. But it is a little annoying that at 3 a.m. the only thing open in the entire town is the Wa (bless Kareem's heart, though). ***, mate?</p>
<p>I've been looking forward to studying abroad since I started high school and would be really crushed if i shouldn't study abroad due to my classes and other obligations. I was wondering if it is advisable for the pre-meds to study abroad?</p>
<p>You could always study abroad over the summer. Princeton offers very good programs in Japan, China, Germany and other countries, I'm sure. The summer programs are supposedly top notch and run for a few months. :-)</p>
<p>if you plan ahead, and aren't too picky about where you go, you can definately study abroad. Especially with email, its easier to stay in touch with your advisor (which if you study abroad as a junior is important because you still have to do your jp). The mol department has study abroads where theyve already worked out most of the details for you, so if youre willing to go to one of the places that theyve chosen its very easy. Its also doable, although harder, if you would like to do something else. You would just have to schedule your premed classes around that semester/year</p>
<p>there are also great summer programs for premeds abroad, I know someone who lived in my building last year who worked in a hospital in germany the summer after his freshman year. I think that the internship was organized by the german department</p>
<p>Thanks for your input, c_j and ec1234. You guys helped me a lot.</p>
<p>Does anyone know roughly what percentage of the class takes part in OA or CA? I kind of want to do CA, but I'm not sure it'll work well with my family plans, and I do want to spend as much time as possible with them before I head off to Pton. WIll I still find friends during orientation who won't already be paired of with their OA/CA friends? I won't know anyone on campus, so I'm a little nervous about that.</p>
<p>About half the class does OA, and a smaller--but still significant--number of your classmates will do CA. OA is by no means necessary to have a social life during those first few weeks of school. In fact, I hardly saw a lot of my OA trip members in the beginning. While I've remained in contact with a few of them, most of the people I hung out with in the beginning were my roommates and friends I'd met online. My roommate didn't do OA or CA, and he slipped into Princeton just fine. That said, OA was an incredibly fun trip, and I miss it a lot. SUPPORT TEAM 2006!!! (hopefully, anyways)</p>
<p>Yeah, but don't you also have, like, 7 roommates, Phil?</p>
<p>I did CA, and loved it. I don't think you will have trouble finding people without doing OA or CA, but I think that it did help in the early days to see some more familiar faces around campus. I haven't stayed close to my CA group members, but several of them are still really close friends.</p>
<p>Haha, yeah, I guess that did help...</p>
<p>The thing about coming back from OA is that you're so eager to meet the rest of your classmates that you kind of stray from your OA/CA group members (at least this seemed to happen with a lot of OA'ers/CA'ers I know). A few of my group members I've stayed really close with, but most I'll just wave to in passing. There are so many people on campus that you'll really want to get out and meet them rather than stay within the comfort zone of your OA group upon returning (all aromatic and beautiful) from your trip :cool:</p>
<p>CA!!!!!!!</p>
<p>My CA group is very close and we love each other to bits. It helped a lot with making friends. At first I was wondering whether I would regret doing CA over OA, but now I know I would choose CA again without second thoughts if I had to repeat the process. In fact, my experience on CA was so positive I spent my fall break in Alabama with other Princetonians to help with the Katrina relief effort--one of the best experiences of my life. Even if you decide not to go on a pre-orientation trip, do try to get involved with SVC in some sort of capacity over your next four years. :)</p>
<p>Ques: For frosh guys, would you say buying a tux would be worthwhile for formals, etc. or would a nice suit be enough?</p>
<p>I wore a nice suit as did many of my friends. Depending on your activities for the evening, you might not want to wear (and mess up) a tux, hah.</p>
<p>if you have a tux, i would bring it, if you don't have one then don't worry about it. People wear both esp to freshman formals. As you move up to houseparties, more people wear tuxes, but suits are still totally fine. Either way youre probably going to have to get it cleaned after formals (especially houseparties, not quite as much after frosh or soph formals)</p>