Putting aside the very hairy area of cheating in relationships, I’m wondering about academic cheating. Before college, I attended a very small, liberal all-girls school where everyone knew everyone else and we were all trained to be as “honorable” as could be. We all had to re-sign an extensive honor code each year, and there were serious penalties for violating it.

I remember in my senior year of high school, one girl was found to have plagiarized part of a paper from the internet. Not only was she suspended; she had to deliver a speech in front of the entire class, explaining why plagiarism was wrong.

Princeton has been particularly aggressive on the cheating front in the same way. We have honor code meetings, have to write a page on matriculation illustrating our understanding of it, and get regular updates from the honor committee. All the same, when I arrived there I discovered whole new layers of gray areas.

In problem set classes, for example, there are plenty of people who like to work in study groups. That’s all well and good, except when “study groups” turn into “let’s just copy the answers off each other.” I thought that kind of behavior was only in the occasional math class, but I was surprised to learn that it’s much more prevalent in college. When all that matters for your future career is that good grade in an Orgo class, it can be extremely tempting just to write down the process and answer of your friends, whether you understand it or not, and worry about the final exam later. Read More »

A common complaint about the Ivy League gang is that we lead very sheltered lives. People on the outside imagine our lives to be one long champagne-soaked yacht ride, a life where all of our wants and needs are taken care of and mummy and daddy’s charge card is always on hand.

In reality, though, more than half of Princeton’s student body is on financial aid, and a very large percentage of that is on nearly 100% financial aid. In addition to that, students spend a lot of time in the summer traveling to developing countries, doing community service in struggling neighborhoods, and generally getting their hands dirty. And yet, the myth persists…and for good reason.

There are a lot of different ways people can be “sheltered.” Ivy Leaguers may not all be rolling in wealth, but they still have an embarrassing lack of practical knowledge across the board. Because most of us spent our young lives with our noses stuck in books or playing some sport obsessively, we don’t really know how to, well, get along in the real world. Read More »

We’ve all been there: the noisy hallmate, the rude hallmate, the one that leaves the bathroom messy or is playing loud music during exam week. But this past year all the forces of evil converged on one hall and ended up giving me the truly infernal hallmate experience. Read on, and pray you never have as bad luck as I did!

Things didn’t seem to be getting off on a good foot when I discovered myself and my boyfriend, also on the same hall, were completely surrounded by freshmen. We were juniors, with a buttload of junior independent work to get done in the course of the year, and we didn’t have as much patience for freshmen shenanigans as in the past. But still, we vowed to be good sports. The freshmen started things off with a bang by constantly converging in the hall right in front of my door to chatter loudly about inane subjects. On weekend nights, the music coming out of their rooms shook the floors, no matter how many times we asked them to turn it down.

The girls decided to label me as a spoil-sport because of this polite request, and insisted on giving me dirty looks in the bathroom. They continually stole the chalk from my chalkboard, left dirty dishes in the sink of the kitchen, and had atrocious hygiene when it came to disposing of sanitary items. That, however, was only the beginning. Read More »

Just when you thought the school year was winding down, high-achieving Ivy League students are ready to leap into action again. Life at Princeton can be competitive and downright cutthroat, depending on your major, and nowhere is this more clear than when it comes to summer internships. Whether you’re doing community service in a developing country or learning what it’s really like to be a money-grubbing I-banker, it’s all about building the resume.

The institutions that hire college interns don’t help relieve the competitive atmosphere; in fact, they aggravate the problem by beginning their recruiting as early as October and November of the previous year. If you want to work at Goldman Sachs or Merril Lynch, you’d better be ready to be interviewed before you’ve even had your fall midterm exams.

The interviews themselves are grueling. My economics-major friends report on five-hour interviews in which they’re drilled on mental math, business sense, and whether the choices made by some corporations were wise or foolish and why. My female econ friends had to have a ready supply of pantsuits or skirts-and-blazers for the rounds of interviews, and my male friends kept pre-knotted ties hung on their bedposts to be deployed at a moment’s notice. Read More »

When I was pledging my sorority Freshman year – for 10 freaking weeks – all I could think about was the day it would all end; I would be a full-fledged member of the house and I wouldn’t have to get the older girls ice cream at 3am, carry cigarettes around for them just in case they might need one while they were out on campus, or have to sleep on the floor of a very cold sorority house every weekend. I was absolutely miserable, but I always knew that there was a bright light at the end of the tunnel (read: date parties and a private cook!) and it would all be worth it in the end.

It may seem crazy to put yourself through hell to join a group, but there is a purpose to pledge term: group bonding and appreciation as you work towards something. I worked hard with my pledge class to succeed at many (mostly ridiculous) tasks, which eventually ended with a very large and exciting payoff.

Payoff being the operative word. Because why else would someone slave away like a dog for weeks without any sort of payoff – unless, of course, they were into all that S&M shit?

Maybe we should ask the people over at Princeton. One of the residential colleges over there recently started a new “program” (service, really) for seniors working on their theses. Obviously, writing a thesis is super duper hard (which is why I decided not to do one, naturally) so someone thought it would be a great idea to offer those thesis-ites a little help. Read More »

The most boring class I took in college was Statistics I.

It was boring and hard, which meant that no matter what I tried, I constantly fell asleep next to my computer and woke up completely lost.

If only I could have taken one of these classes compiled by Mental Floss Magazine, I’m sure my GPA would have looked much better. Instead of dozing off to the lulling sound of a professor droning on about ratios, I could have been studying muppets and watching Sesame Street.

All of these, at one time, actually existed.

The Horror Film in Context – Bowdoin – Watch people get their heads smashed in and then talk about why society likes to watch people get their heads smashed in.

Simpsons and Philosophy – Cal-Berkeley – How much does this popular show reflect society? Apparently enough to warrant a semester’s worth of lectures. Read More »