I HAVE FAILED THIS INSTITUTION. I have spent four years as part of The Princeton Tiger, the campus’ one and only intentionally funny publication (I said “intentionally,” Tory, Prince), and despite that, and despite rising to the rank of Editor-in-Chief, I can’t help but feel like I’ve learned something, and grown as a person. This wasn’t supposed to happen. I repeated my mantra like clockwork, one hundred times each day in front of a mirror: “Editor-in-Chief? I hardly even know her!” Yet it didn’t stop my growth. Not mentally, not emotionally. I am a changed person since I came to Princeton, and dare I say it, a smarter, more well-rounded, more intelligent, just plain better human being.
This is a tragedy. I have let down my fellow writers, editors, artists, and businesspeople, not to mention the holy institution of the Tiger itself. I had only to meet its low, low historical standards, and I failed. I just can’t understand how this happened. Maybe it has something to do with my major. I was a Psych major—a choice I made at the last minute after I realized the deadline to declare was tomorrow and this was basically all I had prereqs for. I suppose I should have taken the safer route and gone with ORFE or Econ—after all, a body without a soul is incapable of learning. But it’s too late for that, so all I can do now is relate what I have learned, and hope that it inspires somebody reading this to not make the same terrible, terrible mistakes I made, and to leave Princeton with their head no more full, their worldview no more tempered and twisted, than when they came in.
Tip 1: Don’t be a Psych major. As a Psych major, I learned, for example, of a phenomenon called the “peak-end rule”, which basically states that, if you subject someone to a very unpleasant or painful experience, but have it end pleasantly or painlessly, they won’t remember the painful bits. There is no better illustration of this phenomenon than the last two months of senior year at Princeton. I finished my thesis, and I celebrated by drinking—water, that is; all that thesising left me very dehydrated—and running around the Street—to let off steam, of course, not for any other reason. I had my last Lawnparties—I went a little easier on the drinking for that, what with the H2O still coursing through my veins from my last Houseparties the two nights before, plus there were too many people on the Street to run around safely. My last Dean’s Date: the last, best opportunity to run around the Street, fifth of Poland Spring in hand. Then Reunions, where I ran around not just the Street, but the whole campus, shotgunning bottles of Aquafina with decades of Princeton alumni. To cap it all off, at Commencement there was even water falling from the sky! After two months like that, I scarcely remember the hardships that came before. Thanks to the peak-end rule, I’ve gone out into the world with only the most wonderful, sun-soaked memories of Princeton. And also an insatiable desire to donate every cent I make to the University.
Another well-known psychological phenomenon is cognitive dissonance. Many studies of cognitive dissonance have shown that people feel more connected to a group if they have to work harder to join and stay in it. Tip 2: Beware of this effect, because you might learn something if you experience it. Case in point, again, our time at Princeton. We all boarded the struggle bus at some point, and we quickly found out that the bus was a Greyhound that hadn’t been serviced since 1982 and that the shocks were busted and all the seats had been removed, but, dammit, we were on that bus together, and we clung on to each other for support, since there weren’t any handrails or anything. So even if these past two months haven’t erased the memory of that week in 2013 when you pulled three consecutive all-nighters during tech week to finish an assignment for a class you ended up dropping a week later anyway, cognitive dissonance means that that memory will make you feel closer to all your classmates in the Class of 2015, and to the University by extension. And it’s impossible to avoid learning two things from such an experience: 1) “I love Princeton”; 2) “I should donate all my money to Princeton”.
There’s also something psychologists like to call a “mind ray”. This is a nifty little gizmo which ensures that, even if Princeton’s other tricks didn’t work on you, even if you think you’ll leave having learned nothing and not changed at all, even if you sidestepped the peak-end rule and wriggled out of the grip of cognitive dissonance, that you’ll leave this place with an eternal, undying love of Princeton and a relentless urge to throw your money into its coffers. It was President Eisgruber’s idea, and he’s very proud of it. Just as the weather machine was Shirley Tilghman’s legacy, the mind ray is set to be Chris Eisgruber’s. It’s also a nice way to distract everyone from the fact that Shirley never showed him how to operate the dang weather machine. The awful polar vortex weather from the past two winters? The infernally hot and muggy Baccalaureate? The abominably cold and wet Commencement? No coincidence. But we can’t complain. The mind ray won’t let us.
Maybe I’ve been fighting a losing battle all along. It seems clear from here that somebody else had a vested interest in me leaving this place a changed person. And that somebody else happens to be the colossal, amorphous hand of the University, and the message they happen to be embedding in us, whispered through the creepy, razor-fanged gash of a mouth nestled right there in the palm for reasons I can’t begin to fathom, is “Love this place. Forever. Oh, and give us all your money.”
That’s why, despite the ridiculous weather, despite the sleepless nights, despite that whole grade deflation thing the administration got rid of at just the right time to not help your GPA in the slightest, you have to love this place, God damn it. That’s why you can’t help but love the gorgeous Gothic architecture all over campus, and lament that you lived in Wilson instead. Why you can’t help but love the flowers in Prospect Garden and magnolia blossoms in the spring, assuming all that pollen didn’t make your eyes water so much it blinded you. Why you can’t help but love the world-class professors at this school, and you can’t help but regret that you spent all of your time in McCosh 50 browsing the J.Crew website instead of listening to them.
PRINCETON, YOU CHANGED ME. You formed me into the man I am today, despite my best efforts. You were the architect of my demise, even though I never once set foot in the architecture building. Even you, O Tiger—fair, orange, taboo Tiger—though you raised an arm mailed in orange Trojan condom packaging, months-old Deer Park (which, though it features a deer on its logo, is conspicuously not, and should not under any circumstances be confused for, a certain spiced German alcoholic beverage featuring a similarly horned ruminant on the bottle) pulsing softly through your veins, could not block me off, could not coddle me in your slightly slimy embrace, could not protect my mind’s feebleness nor its emptiness. Tiger, O Tiger, I am sorry I let you down, and I am forever grateful for all you have given me, all that you have let me write, all the people you have let me meet. I am unworthy of such gifts, Tiger, of your generosity, O Tiger. In marginal, minimal repayment, let me raise my glass—of Dasani—to you.
– AKS ’15