Thursday, Feb. 20 2014 by The Daily Princetonian

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Thursday february 20, 2014 vol. cxxxviii no. 14

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In Opinion Shruthi Deivasigamani argues against the premed mindset, and Kinnari Shah discusses respect for the eating clubs. PAGE 5

In Street Street takes a look at winter fashion, Harrison Blackman deconstructs the history of Nassau Hall and Chitra Marti goes bananas with the founders of the Princeton Bananas Facebook page. PAGE S1

Today on Campus 4:30 p.m.: Former UN President Vuk Jeremic will discuss “Cooperation and Sustainable Development in the 21st Century” in Whig-Clio Senate Chamber.

The Archives

Feb. 20, 1991 Fifteen students protested the Central Intelligence Agency from the steps of Clio Hall. The students, upset with the CIA’s discriminatory hiring practices regarding sexual orientation, criticized the University for allowing the organization to conduct interviews on campus.

PRINCETON By the Numbers

3,215

The total number of second doses of the meningitis vaccine given so far this week.

News & Notes Gellman ’82 wins award for national security reporting

Barton Gellman ’82, a two-time Pulitzer Prizewinning journalist who writes for The Washington Post, was one of 30 recipients to receive the George Polk Award for national security reporting, according to The National Post. Gellman, along with The Guardian’s Laura Poitras, Ewen MacAskill and Glenn Greenwald, was recognized for reporting based on the documents that former intelligence analyst Edward Snowden leaked. Gellman’s and the others’ reporting efforts have opened up a renewed debate over the legitimacy of government surveillance by revealing the extent of surveillance and massive data collected by the National Security Agency. This was the 65th annual George Polk Award, conferred each year to honor investigative and enterprise reporting that is original, requires resourcefulness and procures results that gain public attention. The Polk award ceremony will be held April 11 in New York.

LOCAL NEWS

Holt decides not to run for reelection By Jacob Donnelly staff writer

Eight-term Democratic U.S. Rep. Rush Holt announced his decision to retire on Tuesday in an email to supporters. He represented New Jersey’s 12th district, which includes the town of Princeton. “Today I am announcing that I will not seek re-election to the U.S. House of Representatives,” the email read. “It has been and remains an immense honor for me to represent the people of New Jersey’s 12th District … There is no hidden motive for my STUDENT LIFE

Males make up over half of Bicker acceptees By Ruby Shao staff writer

Almost 60 percent of the students accepted to Tiger Inn this spring are male. This number represents a slight decrease in the number of new male members compared to last spring, when the number of male students accepted to TI represented 62.5 percent of the new membership. Approximately 53 percent of students accepted to Tower Club were female, the bicker club with the largest percentage of new female members. TI president Ryan Cash ’15 did not respond to a request for comment. The numbers were provided by outgoing president Chris Hamm ’14. In total, 52.5 percent, or 296 of the 564 students who joined a selective eating club are male, according to an independent review of mem-

decision. As friends who have worked with me know, I have never thought that the primary purpose of my work was re-election and I have never intended to make service in the House my entire career.” Liz Muoio, Mercer County’s Democratic party chairwoman, told The Daily Princetonian that, as of Wednesday evening, nine individuals had expressed interest to her in running for the position being vacated by Holt. Petitions to run for Holt’s seat are due on March 31, and the primary election is on June 3.

Cap & Gown

Club Nom, an initiative started by Hannah Rosenthal ’15 to facilitate dialogue between upperclassmen in eating clubs and those in other eating options, held its first event at Cloister Inn on Wednesday. The initiative will hold 10 dialogues in each of the participating clubs this semester. Each dialogue is centered on a big question, and invites 10 students from the host club and 10 students from other clubs and dining options to discuss it. The question at the first meal on Wednesday was, “What do we choose to ignore?” Utsarga Sikder ’15 attended the first event at Cloister and said that he generally enjoyed the fact that the event let him interact with people he didn’t know before. “It was really like social groups that I’m not a member of, and a lot of the people in it I had never met before, didn’t really know too well, so it was nice meeting a whole bunch of new people,” Sikder said. “I felt

By Do-Hyeong Myeong staff writer

An online petition for a new vegetarian co-op has been circulating on campus since Feb. 6, asking University President Christopher Eisgruber ’83 to consider establishing a new co-op in the Dickinson Street Annex housing. The goal of the petition is to gather 200 signatures, and, as of Wednesday, 188 people have signed the petition so far. Aleksandra Taranov ’15, who came up with the idea for the petition, explained that student demand for a new co-op on campus currently exceeds the supply. Taranov

Cottage

36 32

55 43

noted that three of the four co-ops on campus — the Brown Co-op, the Real Food Co-op and the 2 Dickinson St. Co-op — are filled to capacity this spring, and 2D alone has a wait-list of 25 people as of Feb. 6. Taranov also explained that even though the new coop would be vegetarian, the students who have expressed interest in joining it are not all vegetarian. “I wanted to make the coop membership possible for all students who wish to participate,” Taranov said, noting that in the past decade the membership size of 2D has grown from 35 to 54, and See CO-OP page 3

Ivy

46 54 52 62

Cannon

Tower

47 58 38

Tiger Inn

CARRIE CHEN :: SENIOR DESIGNER

bership lists obtained by The Daily Princetonian as well as information from club officers. The other 268 students, or approximately 47.5 percent of those who gained admission, are female. Cap & Gown Club, Cottage Club, Ivy Club and TI accepted mostly male members this year, while Tower and Cannon Dial Elm Club

Club Nom hosts first dialogue at Cloister Inn staff writer

Holt, a nuclear physicist and one of only two physicists in Congress, was an assistant director of the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory before taking office in 1999. He had never held elective office before then. See HOLT page 4

Students petition for new vegetarian co-op

Gender Imbalance in Bicker Eating Clubs

STUDENT LIFE

By Chitra Marti

RUSH HOLT U.S. Rep. for N.J.’s 12th district.

STUDENT LIFE

pretty comfortable expressing whatever I thought.” Rosenthal said this idea of bringing people together is what the dialogues are all about. “If we could get together and have a conversation about race or class, or something, and that would be very touchy and controversial, because it has a very explicit goal to it,” Rosenthal said. “But in creating a dialogue about a very general topic, something that everybody can relate to, you can engage in a conversation that isn’t intimidating and actually build friendship.” As one of five Hillel fellows for the national organization Ask Big Questions, Rosenthal is required to hold five dialogues as a part of the fellowship. The other four Princeton fellows, Rachel Shuman ’15, Vicky Quevedo ’15, Molly Dwyer ’16 and Elliott Eggan ’14, have also hosted a variety of dialogues this year. The fellows receive funding from Ask Big Questions. “The goal is to choose two groups of people who aren’t See DIALOGUE page 2

accepted more females than males. Males make up 51 percent of the overall undergraduate population, according to the University’s enrollment statistics. Cap, the most selective and most bickered club both this year and last year, accepted 55 males and 43 females, outgoing president Justin Perez ’14 said. Perez said Cap does

not take gender into account when considering bickerees and added that the gender ratio was also relatively even among the students that were not accepted. “We look at each bickeree individually, and the way the numbers come out are the way the numbers come out,” he said, noting that Cap was the first club to open up to

DOCUMENTARY SCREENING

women in 1972 and adding that it does not discriminate. Tower accepted 62 female students and 54 male students, according to president John Whelchel ’15. More female than male bickerees joined Tower last year as well. Whelchel explained that the gender ratio among new members See GENDER page 4 BEYOND THE BUBBLE

U. professor claims global warming not caused by polar vortex By Elizabeth Paul staff writer

GRACE JEON :: CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER

Students for Education Reform presented the documentary “Broken on All Sides” in McCormick Room 101 on Tuesday.

University lecturer Isaac Held and his colleagues published a letter in “Science” on Feb. 14 arguing that the recent extreme cold temperatures experienced in the Northeast were not due to human-induced global warming but were instead caused by natural fluctuations in the climate. Held was joined in writing the letter by University of Washington professor John Wallace, Colorado State University professor David Thompson, University of Alaska Fairbanks professor John Walsh and Kevin Trenberth at the National Center for Atmospheric Research. The letter argues against the claim that human-induced global warming could result in more frigid winters. The letter also argues that statements that the polar regions have recently begun warming more rapidly See CLIMATE page 3

The Daily Princetonian

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Thursday february 20, 2014

Club seeks to facilitate dialogue among students in different dining options DIALOGUE Continued from page 1

to interact with friends outside of their club.

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usually in contact with each other, and then facilitate a dialogue about one of these broader questions,” Rosenthal said. “Because mealtime is the crux of socializing on campus, I figured that would be the most convincing way in which to get students to participate. It’s a free meal, fully funded.” The idea behind Club Nom, Rosenthal said, came from a common complaint that students have about eating clubs — the complaint that students in clubs often don’t get the chance

“You can engage in a conversation that isn’t intimidating and actually build friendship.” Hannah Rosenthal ’15 club nom founder

“Being able to finally follow through with my goals

is exciting for me, and to have people on board … It’s very informal, it’s not intimidating at all,” Rosenthal said. To plan the dialogue, Rosenthal attended an Interclub Council meeting last fall, where she pitched the idea to the 11 eating clubs. All but Cottage Club signed on, though some clubs took longer than others to join. Club Nom also helps the clubs meet their educational requirements, Rosenthal said, so that they can retain their status as 501(c)(3) nonprofit organizations and continue to get Princeton Prospect Foundation funding.

“We’re kind of like a consultant for the clubs, helping them with their educational [requirements]” Rosenthal said. Club Nom is not the first dialogue Rosenthal has held on campus. As a fellow at the Carl A. Fields Center and a member of the board of Black Men’s Awareness Group, Rosenthal worked to facilitate a Black-Jewish dialogue last year at the Center for Jewish Life. Recently, she organized a “Soul Food Shabbat” dinner, which she said about 200 students came to. Rosenthal also hosted a series on race, ethnicity and identity at Wilson College last spring.

“I love dialogues. I feel like there’s so much you can learn from engaging in

“I felt pretty comfortable expressing whatever I thought.” Utsarga Sikder ’15

a conversation with people you’ve never met before, with people from different backgrounds,” Rosenthal

said. “It builds friendship very easily, and the point is to be a safe confidential space.” Rosenthal said she hopes to see the project through to its end and continue next year with all 11 eating clubs on board. “My vision is to successfully lead 10 dialogues this year, and then hopefully next year continue to pursue the project, and also get Cottage on board, so that we can have 11 dialogues with very diverse populations,” she said. “If I’m somehow able to impact 20 kids in every dialogue, 200 kids is, you know, a fair number of students.”

COOKING UP MUSIC

ASAWARI SODHI :: SENIOR PHOTOGRAPHER

Princeton Sound Kitchen presented the Mivos String Quartet and Dither Guitar Quartet on Tuesday.

The Daily Princetonian

Thursday february 20, 2014

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Cold could be caused by natural fluctuations in climate, says Held CLIMATE Continued from page 1

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than the rest of the world are inconclusive. “I don’t think that’s the case. I think it’s been warming more rapidly more along,” Held said, referring to the polar regions. Held is both a lecturer in the Princeton Program in Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences and a scientist with the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The letter references research published in the Geophysical Research Letters suggesting that global warming could perturb the polar vortex and cause both more extreme cold and extreme warm, saying that results of this research were unsubstantiated and have not been supported by

the models proposed by many climate scientists. The polar vortex is a ring of Westerlies, pre-

“You know, for years we were told we’re going to fry, and the earth refused to cooperate.” William Happer

physics proffessor

vailing winds that blow from west to east around the poles that are strongest in the winter, Wallace explained. Wallace is a professor of atmospheric sciences at the University of Washington.

3 out of 4 existing co-ops already filled to capacity CO-OP

Continued from page 1

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the wait-list has ranged from 25 to 50 students. She added that 2D was only able to accept everyone on its wait-list for one semester in the past four years. Jasmine Race ’15, who signed the petition, noted that discussion surrounding the new co-op is not new. “Throughout this year people have been saying, ‘You know, we should start a new co-op,’ ” she said. “So people have been talking about it in this past year, but not seriously, and then a few weeks ago Aleksandra decided to start the petition.” Students who have signed the petition generally pointed out that the co-op could be a great experience on campus, and the creation of a new coop would allow more students to have an opportunity to share that experience. Ryan Miller ’17 explained that he signed the petition because he believes co-ops provide a great opportunity for students who like food and cooking but don’t have time to cook for themselves, and that there should be more opportunities for students to participate in a co-op. “I have a dream that one day my grandchildren will come to Princeton and find a row of

co-ops in the houses on Dickinson Street,” Damaris Miller ’15 said, explaining that she believes the creation of a new co-op would help co-ops to become a flourishing, longlasting University tradition. Evangelie Zachos ’14 noted that the University has been paying little attention to coops compared to the other dining options and that she feels that co-ops do a lot of things that the University should be proud of and support. When asked about the benefits of co-ops over other dining options, Race said that coops, contrary to eating clubs, provide students with the opportunity to mix and mingle with graduate students in a friendly, close-knit environment. “I noticed that after cooking and eating together, you come to know your co-op members as human beings, rather than solely as academic peers,” Race said. Taranov noted that co-ops can also foster a culture of responsibility and cooperation on campus. “It functions by the cooperation of the students on a campus where so much success happens to be very individual and academic,” Taranov said. The petitioners are currently in the process of meeting with administrators to discuss the petition.

Wallace noted that the vortex continually changes its shape, and when its lobes sweep down over temperate areas, those regions get periods of cold weather. “I don’t think the slowing down of the polar vortex is enough to really affect behavior of the vortex very much,” he said. He also noted that the belief that human-induced climate change could cause more extreme cold was, in fact, held by only a small minority of researchers. “The reason we wrote the letter is because of our concern that this is getting picked up by the press and presented as if it were part of the consensus about global warming,” Wallace said, referencing the claim that climate change results in more frigid winters. Held noted that global warm-

ing could cause more extreme droughts and wet periods as the atmosphere begins to hold more water vapor. However, he added that not all extreme weather patterns can be explained by climate change.

“I think for climate change you have to take a much longer view.” Isaac Held

university lecturer

“We expect hurricanes to become more intense as the climate warms, but I don’t think we expect storms at temperate

latitudes … to become more extreme,” Held said, adding that fierce storms could simply be due to natural fluctuations. Like Held, University Physics professor William Happer said this year’s weather is not anomalous. “It’s exactly the same as weather we’ve had in my own lifetime many times,” Happer said. “Why should it suddenly be climate change?” Happer explained that this year’s record lows have been emphasized in order to support the climate change “myth.” “You know, for years we were told we’re going to fry, and the earth refused to cooperate. And so they desperately look for something else to hang their hat on,” he said, referring to supporters of the global warming theory. Held also said this year’s ex-

treme cold is most likely part of natural fluctuations in global climate.

“It’s exactly the same as weather we’ve had in my own lifetime many times.” William Happer

physics proffessor

“I think for climate change you have to take a much longer view,” Held said. “A changing over a 10-year period is just too mild. It gets overwhelmed by the natural variability of the system.”

The Daily Princetonian

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U. supportive of Holt during 2011-12 campaign Tower, Cannon take HOLT more females than males Continued from page 1

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“There is a bumper sticker that goes around Princeton that says ‘My Congressman is a rocket scientist,’ ” former University President Shirley Tilghman, who was also a vocal supporter of Holt, said in a November interview. “I’ve always felt kind of proud to be able to say that we have someone representing us in Congress with Rush Holt’s intelligence and his scientific background.” The University was also supportive of Holt while he was in office. As Holt’s largest single donor, the University gave $42,090 to his campaign in the 2011-2012 election cycle, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Holt previously cited the alternative energy research occurring at the PPPL as his reason for wanting to work there. While in Congress, Holt secured $22 billion in funds for scientific research in the 2009 stimulus bill alone, and he also mentioned in a Tuesday New York Times article that he was proud of expanding suicide prevention programs for military members and working with states on land and water conservation. The University and the PPPL received $27 million and $19.4 million, respectively, from the stimulus bill, according to a May 2010 ‘Prince’ article. In a December 2013 ‘Prince’ article, Tilghman credited Holt for co-hosting a 2007 meeting at the University that ultimately resulted in the America COMPETES Act, which mandated investment in research and development. “That meeting was [also] important for securing the funding for scientific research as part of the stimulus package,” University Dean for Research Pablo Debenedetti

said in an interview with the ‘Prince’ on Wednesday. “He’s been a really extraordinary advocate for science research and science education in general.” Emily Carter, professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering and applied and computational mathematics, and founding director of the Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment, said Holt was among a rare breed of scientists within Congress. “He’s a terrific human being … I’m sad that he decided not to continue, because he’s one of the only scientists in Congress right now,” Carter said. “He represents an ideal of the kind of ethical, ideal, hardworking, non-power hungry person that’d you like to see in the House of Representatives.” During Holt’s failed 2013 bid to secure the Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate seat vacated by Sen. Frank Lautenberg, who died in June 2013, 65 scientists signed a letter endorsing his run, including seven Nobel laureates and a former Secretary of Energy. Many of the signers were University faculty members. Cory Booker ultimately won the nomination and the seat. “Rush became a rare and outspoken voice for evidencebased thinking in the U.S. Congress,” the letter said. “Never before in our history have we needed more and had less scientific expertise in the United States Congress.” Frank von Hippel, a nuclear physicist who is now a professor of public and international affairs at the Wilson School and co-director of the Program on Science and Global Security, was among those who signed the letter. “[Holt] is very capable. He’s insightful and has good priorities in my judgment,” von Hippel said. “This Republican Party doesn’t give much outlet for one’s creativity

or generosity as a minority member of the House. I guess I took his decision as an indication that he doesn’t think that the Democrats are going to take over anytime soon.” Von Hippel also said that Holt was accessible to members of the University community. “He certainly was receptive to me. I’d been working on the Iran nuclear issue, and he was very supportive,” von Hippel said. “He even came to some NGO meetings at the Hague and in Vienna … meetings with Iranian officials, and we just kind of discussed the possibilities.” Robert Keohane, professor of international affairs at the Wilson School, said that Holt’s membership in the House minority party and his failure to be elected as senator, which would have given him a job with a greater scope in a branch of Congress where he would likely have been in the majority, probably contributed to his decision to move on. “He’s relatively young. He has a lot of talent. My guess is that he has something he wants to do that seems to be more interesting than hitting his head against the wall,” Keohane explained. “[His running for Senate] indicates that he was very dissatisfied with being a representative … He should have lots of opportunities. Why should he go to the office every day knowing he’s not going to accomplish anything?” Holt was rated one of the five most liberal members of the House by the National Journal in 2009. He voiced his frustration with government shutdowns that he blamed on House Republicans in an October 2013 interview with the ‘Prince’. Holt, the sole Quaker in Congress, also called for cuts in defense spending during his tenure. “We are spending as much

as the rest of the world combined [on military spending], friend and foe,” Holt had said. “We shouldn’t be known for the efficiency of our killing. We should be known for the humanity of our ideals.” He also expressed frustration with the state of affairs in Washington at a March 8 question-and-answer session at Terrace Club. Specifically, he said he thought his colleagues lacked the will to invest in research and education. Nonetheless, Holt remained optimistic about Congress in a statement to The New York Times on Tuesday. “From my point of view, Congress, even with its frustrations, is the greatest instrument for justice and human welfare in the world,” he said. “The stories trying to puzzle out why someone would do something else are based on this rather narrow way of thinking that the only purpose for a member of Congress is to be reelected. I’ve never viewed it that way, and I think everybody who’s worked with me knows that I think there are a lot of things that I can and should be doing.” Holt maintained a close relationship with the University throughout his time in office and was in attendance at the installation ceremony of University President Christopher Eisgruber ’83 on Sept. 22. “The speech, in fact, today dealt in part, I’m pleased to see, with maintaining excellent education in America and not falling victim to fads, to excessive commercialization or commoditization,” Holt said at the time. Holt is also a five-time Jeopardy! champion and was the only member of Congress to defeat the IBM supercomputer Watson on the show. His father, Rush Holt, Sr. was a U.S. Senator from West Virginia.

GENDER Continued from page 1

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was arbitrary. “You have to keep in mind that all of the decisions — in terms of when we take people — are group decisions,” he said. “It’s really just a function of the people who come out.” Cannon president Connor Kelley ’15 said the club accepted 52 females and 46 males, but declined to comment further. Former Cannon president Connor Clegg ’14 did

not respond to multiple requests for comment. Cottage accepted 38 female students and 47 male students, according to sources within the club. Cottage accepted 88 new members, according to previous reporting, so three students are unaccounted for. Former Cottage president John McGee ’14 did not respond to a request for comment. Ivy accepted an almost even ratio of 32 females and 34 males. Former Ivy president Thatcher Foster ’14 did not respond to a request for comment.

CORRECTION Due to a reporting error, an earlier version of the Feb. 18 article “Confusion surrounding vaccination and blood drives resolved” inaccurately stated a quote by University Spokesperson Martin Mbugua. The ‘Prince’ regrets the error.

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Shruthi Deivasigamani columnist

The premed mindset is selfdestructive

s a molecular biology major, after every name/hometown/department introduction, I inevitably get asked, “Oh, so are you premed?” To be honest, I don’t know too many MOL majors who aren’t premed. There’s so much overlap between the departmental requirements for the former and the suggested coursework for the latter that a Venn diagram comparing the two would be very close to a circle. That being said, I never quite understood the stigma associated with being premed. We’re called cutthroat and vicious, GPA-obsessed and perennially on edge. Facets of these are something I’ve observed from the Princeton undergraduate population as a whole, particularly after finals week when you can’t walk 50 feet without hearing someone complain about his grades on SCORE, so why the premeds were pinned with the entirety of the responsibility was beyond me. That is, until this year, when I began taking more departmental classes and realized that we premeds are, in fact, exactly as bad as others say we are. I’m not sure what it is about the sciences that brings out the most competitive and, frankly, irritating side of people. I’ve heard kids list out the mind-numbing minutiae of their resumes to their lab partners, who have no choice but to listen quietly until their DNA sample finishes its hour-long incubation. I’ve seen freshmen with MCAT prep books worn and open on their desks, barely a year after they closed their big blue SAT ones for the last time. I’ve gotten rejection emails that cited the “competitive nature of medical internships” specifically, as though premeds being ultra-competitive was a hard fact. There are so many other preprofessional tracks that should be just as competitive — prelaw, for instance — that aren’t. Maybe it’s the precise courses premeds have to take, which put us all together in the same environment, so we know exactly whom we’ll be competing against senior year. Maybe it’s the reputation these classes have for having a larger time commitment or harsher curve. Regardless, the premed mindset is selfdestructive. After hearing one of those friendof-a-friend tales that’s passed down the department like a campfire horror story — this one about a girl with a solid GPA who couldn’t get into a single medical school in America — I sat in a shell-shocked panic all day. Maybe the premed mindset is in place for a reason, a sort of Darwinian trait that helps the fittest survive longest. That evening, I bookmarked every spreadsheet and bell curve Princeton publishes about medical school admissions and resolved to get on a first name basis with the director of Health Professions Advising. It took me a day to realize that the premed mindset is very strongly reminiscent of something all of us have gone through already. It’s the same mindset that got everyone one of us into Princeton in the first place — whether or not we’ll readily admit it. We studied for the SAT and made sure we were in the good books of those who would write our recommendations. We planned “rewarding and valuable” summer exploits and always knew what was up with the Forbes annual list of top colleges. The thing is, we had 12 whole years to prepare for the college application process, and I’ll be the first to admit it was an excessively stressful process. To have to launch back into it seven months after receiving an acceptance letter just isn’t healthy. There’s no grace period, no significant stretch of time to recoup before having to worry about resumes and recommendations all over again. What’s worse is that the past 18 years have been wiped clean. You’re starting over in the eyes of any member of a postsecondary education admissions committee. The easy answer is that we should just stop being so stressed, but that’s much easier said than done. The premed mindset isn’t going away. It’s a natural byproduct of the school we go to and the futures these students envision for themselves. However, it can be very toxic, and it’s important to remember that. It creates an environment of competition and pressure that isn’t good for anyone who has to partake in it. The worst-case scenario of premed culture is that you burn out — lose all motivation to keep working hard and shrink into crushing existentialism. It’s not a great endgame, and premeds should take all the competition with a tablespoon of salt. It’s not worth the stress if it’s going to cause a meltdown. It’s important to remember that for every horror story, there are at least four success stories. Princeton’s grade deflation policy sucks, but despite it, the University still boasts a medical school admission rate a good 40 percentage points above the national average. It’s easy to get caught up in premed culture — the comparisons and the competition — but we did all get into Princeton for a reason, and if we make a conscious effort not to place the utmost importance on any one facet of our educational careers, we’ll be just fine. Shruthi Deivasigamani is a sophomore from Cresskill, N.J. She can be reached at shruthid@princeton.edu.

Opinion

Thursday february 20, 2014

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{ www.dailyprincetonian.com }

What would Aretha Franklin do? Kinnari Shah Columnist

“Last night, she said: ‘Oh, baby, I feel so down. Oh it turns me off, When I feel left out.’ ” - The Strokes

ast Saturday night: upstairs, in the bathroom stall of my own eating club. I hear a member of another club. Mine is called “alright.” But hers, in hers they “handpick the best members of every race.” I am aghast. Did I hear wrong? Did I mistake playfulness for pride? Others confirm the story though. They have heard the same sentiment touted at different times, in different locations. I didn’t even have to finish the story before a friend told me she knew exactly how it ended. I’ve never heard anything like that before. Stories, yes. But I’ve never heard such explicit and completely unabashed social engineering, not to this level. Perhaps I have taken the quotation out of context. Then again, I can’t imagine in which context it belongs. Two and a half years ago: reading “This Side of Paradise.” How cliché. I can’t say I generally like Fitzgerald’s characters. There is

one chapter though, “Narcissus Off Duty,” in which a number of his fictitious junior Princetonians are considering leaving their clubs, banding together in protest. It’s an interesting thought. Fitzgerald calls eating clubs “an orgy of sociability.” I wonder if he is being hypocritical with that tone. I then wonder, just on a whim, if our sophomores or juniors would ever band together and protest the club system. I doubt it; they have no Burne Holiday. And he wasn’t even that great. Earlier this month: Bicker season. Everyone is complaining. Girls are standing around in the bathroom discussing other people as I brush my teeth. I don’t necessarily mind at this point, but many find it incessant. “They all hate it,” someone claims later at lunch. “But they’re too chicken to do anything about it, to stop doing it.” I don’t completely agree. I doubt that most of them truly hate it, and I think that, for most of the year, the rest of us don’t think about it all too much. At least, nobody ever does anything about it. It’s just for some of us, and it’s not for others. The trouble is that you don’t necessarily know which one you are, and you’re too scared to go it alone for a little while. That’s a real shame. Two years ago: full disclosure to the reader — hosed. Ouch. One year and eleven months ago: it doesn’t take too long for things to seem right back where they

belong. We are rather resilient. We can find a place if we are open to being in some place unexpected. Two weekends ago, i.e. post-Bicker: out on the Street. People pull out their phones and read a text or email. Many of them cry. They’re out and they’re crying. What a visceral and public display of emotion that can’t be helped. This could have probably been handled differently. Whether the system stays or goes, continues unperturbed or changes, I don’t know. I do know that I have enjoyed my two years as a member of an eating club. The only thing for which I think we are all (to varying degrees) culpable is a lack of respect. Respect for other clubs and their members and their houses. Respect for bickerees. Respect for the person who gets hosed. You have to really mean it though. Just because we are divided by clubs, by membership and nonmembership, doesn’t mean we should be divided. Through this perspective of mine you’ve just read, I come to one last thought that maybe people say but don’t mean enough: Don’t be afraid of things not working out at first. Have the courage to do something different from your friends if you know it’s what you really want. It will be alright. Don’t waste any of your time. Kinnari Shah is a chemical and biological engineering major from Washington, N.J. She can be reached at kmshah@princeton.edu.

How’s your thesis going?

vol. cxxxviii

Marcelo Rochabrun ’15 editor-in-chief

Nicholas Hu ’15

business manager

BOARD OF TRUSTEES president Richard W. Thaler, Jr. ’73 vice presidents John G. Horan ’74 Thomas E. Weber ’89 secretary Kathleen Kiely ’77 treasurer Michael E. Seger ’71 Craig Bloom ’88 Gregory L. Diskant ’70 Richard P. Dzina, Jr. ’85 William R. Elfers ’71 Zachary A. Goldfarb ’05 John G. Horan ’74 Rick Klein ’98 James T. MacGregor ’66 Betsy J. Minkin ’77 Alexia Quadrani Jerry Raymond ’73 Annalyn Swan ’73 Douglas Widmann ’90

138TH BUSINESS BOARD business manager Nicholas Hu ’15 head of advertising Zoe Zhang ’16 director of national advertising Kevin Tang ’16 director of recruitment advertising Justine Mauro ’17 director of local advertising Mark Zhang ’17 director of online advertising Matteo Kruijssen ’16

adam.................................. Mastroianni ’14

head of operations Daniel Kim ’17 head of finance Charles Zhou ’16 comptroller Denise Chan ’17 accounts receivable manager Eugene Cho ’17

NIGHT STAFF 02.19.14 news Carla Javier ’15 Corinne Lowe ’17 copy Caroline Congdon ’17 Elizabeth Dolan ’16 Natalie Gasparowicz ’16 Lily Lesser ’17 design Debbie Yun ’16 Tomi Johnson ’16 Gerry Lerena ’16

Comparing academic fields Jason Choe

contributing columnist

As first semester drew to a close and final grades came out, I was reminded of a common sentiment that I had heard from many of my engineering friends — that being an engineering major is “hard.” In and of itself, such a subjective statement isn’t really anything I can argue against. But then, of course, comes the catch — a B.S.E. degree isn’t just difficult, it’s more difficult than the alternative, an A.B. degree. Being an A.B. major myself (and finding it plenty difficult enough), I, of course, couldn’t let such claims slide. Undoubtedly, any subject at Princeton should, by virtue of the level of academic merit at our topranked institution, be challenging, and engineering classes are certainly no exception. But to claim that they are more arduous than other courses is simply an unfair argument. First and foremost, the active grade def lation policy applies evenly to all departments, regardless of affiliation with an engineering or a humanities subject, and thus, the distribution of grades received by students of both degree types would be roughly similar. Of course, grade distribution isn’t by itself a good measure of relative difficulty. After all, I could have

very well gotten an A in one class by doing nothing more than simply attending lectures, and have gotten a B in a class that I pulled allnighters studying for. To reconcile this contradiction, the claim that B.S.E. courses are harder often revolves not only on grading policy but also on the workload. In particular, engineers often (reasonably) grumble about the fact that the subject matter is often highly technical and requires a precise understanding of specific concepts, the lab sessions often exceed their supposed three-hour benchmark, and the homework assignments are notorious for consisting of lengthy problem sets replete with questions requiring ridiculous amounts of work. But these facts do not in any way justify the claim that engineering courses are more difficult than humanities subjects. Admittedly, most humanities classes do not assign weekly problem sets for homework, nor do they involve lab sessions. But what they lack in direct homework and labs, they make up for with large amounts of reading, as well as intensive discussion sessions during precept. The readings can be quite lengthy, as noted in previous Daily Princetonian Opinion columns — upwards of hundreds of pages per week, often consisting of rather archaic primary sources or highly detailed

analyses. And the precepts can host heated debates about complicated issues — just because the topics of discussion don’t involve numbers or scientific principles doesn’t make them any easier! Now, if you really wanted a hard line-in-the-sand quantification, I suppose that a good place to start would be to gather information from a random sampling of representative engineering classes and humanities classes, then compare the distributions of the times that it took students to complete the work for each of those two categories of classes as a good measure of the timeintensiveness of each field. But these figures would be effectively meaningless with regards to measuring actual class difficulty, because to compare B.S.E. classes and A.B. classes is to compare two intrinsically different things. They teach, test for and require different skills; they enforce different methods of thinking, and ultimately, students’ propensities for one or the other will hinge on their unique individual academic dispositions. In the end, trying to say that either a B.S.E. degree or an A.B. degree is harder than the other is akin to comparing a crossword puzzle to a Rubik’s cube — both can be seen as difficult or challenging from certain angles, both can require lots of work to solve; different

types of people will naturally find one to be simpler than (or perhaps preferable to) the other. Outside of college, there seems to be a rising perception that technical engineering-based jobs are more difficult than comparable non-scientific occupations; perhaps this can be attributed in part to the fact that, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, all 10 of the top 10 highest-paying jobs in 2012 involved the medical field or related technologies involved in the medical field. (Chief executives were a close 11th, but didn’t make it to the top 10.) It seems that many assume that wage correlates with degree of job difficulty, and while such a fact may hold true if you compare the jobs of, say, a McDonald’s employee and a neurosurgeon, in the upper echelons of the income tier, the distinction becomes less clear. Who can say that an anesthesiologist’s job is any more difficult than a financial analyst’s, that a software engineer has a harder job than a lawyer? Instead of complaining about how difficult a field may be perceived to be relative to another, students should revel in the learning process and know that, ultimately, we are never alone in having difficulties. Jason Choe is a freshman from Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif. He can be reached at jasonjc@princeton.edu.

Sports

Thursday february 20, 2014

page 6

{ www.dailyprincetonian.com }

WOMEN’S

Swimming & Diving 4-3 overall

RECORD: Record

percentage of points

Freestyle

53.1

Backstroke

51.6

Breaststroke

43.3

Butterfly

66.1

Diving

65.7

#1 senior

Lisa Boyce

L: 156-144

PENN

CORNELL

season results

50 Free - 22.07 (Ivy League Record) 100 Free - 48.37 (School Record) 100 Back - 52.93 (Ivy League Record) 100 Fly - 52.76 (School Record)

W: 92-208

Ivy League Champion in the 800 yard freestyle relay

#2 sophomore

Second best league time in 200 breaststroke and IM

Nikki Larson

50 Free - 23.3 100 Free - 50.45 100 Fly - 53.21 (2nd in program history) 200 Fly - 1:59.09 200 IM - 2:01.19

W: 112-183

W: 117-178

#3 freshman

HARVARD

Honorable Mention All-America Olympic Trials competitor

DARTMOUTH

(1 tie)

Princeton has won 11 of the last 14 Ivy League titles.

L: 189-111

Olivia Chan

100 Breast - 1:02.81 200 Breast - 2:16.89 100 Fly - 55.14 200 IM - 2:01.08

COLUMBIA

losses

YALE

wins

BROWN

Event

4-3 Ivy League

W: 129-171

L: 165-131

HANNAH MILLER :: SENIOR DESIGNER

Tweet of the Day

Trivia

‘Off to Estonia tonight for my first WC of the season! Wish me luck!’

What was the last year Princeton women’s squash won the Howe Cup at home?

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