Articles filed under “Goings On”

Princeton will reinstate its early admissions program, the school announced this morning.

High school students next year will be able to apply “single-choice early action.” The application is non-binding — if accepted, the student has until the end of the regular admissions process to decide — but students who apply early to Princeton cannot apply early anywhere else.

“In eliminating our early program four years ago, we hoped other colleges and universities would do the same and they haven’t,” said President Shirley Tilghman in an article posted on the Princeton homepage. ”By reinstating an early program, we hope we can achieve two goals: provide opportunities for early application for students who know that Princeton is their first choice, while at the same time sustaining and even enhancing the progress we have made in recent years in diversifying our applicant pool and admitting the strongest possible class.”

Harvard, the other school to eliminate its early admissions program in 2006, also announced today that it would reinstate its early admission program for next year.

Details to follow…

Here at Princeton, we all love to play something I call the Sleep Deprivation Game. You know what I’m talking about. The one where you nonchalantly throw statistics about just how tired you are and just how little you slept last night into conversation. The one where you one-up your friends by saying that you pulled more all-nighters than them last week. The one that leads to exchanges like:

A: Hey what’s up?
B: I’m so tired dude. I slept 3.5 hours last night.
A: Ohhh my God that’s crazy … I totally know how it feels though because I’ve gone like three days on 2 hours of sleep each.
B: Oh yeah that’s intense. But last week I pulled two all-nighters in a row, AND I had 9 a.m. lab the next morning.
A: Aw I’m so sorry, but you know during discussions I just didn’t sleep at all, for like four days straight!
(At this point, B stops talking. A is gloating and thinking, “YES I WIN I’m so exhausted and hardcore haaaa.”)

It is twisted and masochistic. But you know you play this game all the time. With that in mind, consider this statement:

“So I get up at 3 a.m. to work. Usually I keep going until around 7 in the morning … then I take a quick nap and get back to business at 9. As for sleep, I get a few hours here and there. It’s enough to keep me going.”

Would you rather be staring at a few hundred of these or at your thesis?

Would you rather be staring at a few hundred of these or at your thesis?

Sound familiar? Surprisingly, this quote doesn’t come from a Dean’s Date victim. It comes from a little-noticed minority group, whose constituents are even more sleep-deprived than you: the local public works crews.

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The holidays may have come and gone, but the USG is still taking votes on what Princetonians are wishing for. While the USG hasn’t officially commented on the results, voting information from the “Which do you want more?” survey that’s been available on Point for the past month is available at the USG’s All Our Ideas page.

Bet you can't guess who sent in the one on the left ...

Bet you can't guess who sent in the one on the left ...

As always, there are two things on our collective mind: food, and grades.

While the number one pick was making the Wednesday of Thanksgiving week a holiday, Friday night late meal and letting juniors and seniors use their two free meals a week at late meal rounded out the top three. Seven of the top 25 picks were food-related, from to-go boxes in the dining halls (#7) to an email or SMS roundup of free food options on campus (#25).

The other recurring theme, unsurprisingly, was grades. “Less mystery around grading” came in eighth, with “exam database” right behind in ninth. A deadline for returning final and midterm grades, asking professors to post previous exams, and compulsory midterm evaluations were also popular picks.

But there were some surprises, too. While we’d love to end our grade deflation angst, improve Wi-Fi quality, and be able to use PawPoints at the Wa and other off-campus spots, we’d be even happier with a couple of staplers.

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242224957Taken just after 4:30 in the hallway of the package room–the line was backed up all the way down the hall.

Pretty emissions. (nytimes.com)

Winter wanes, but we’re all still sick. I’ve noticed that my ECO 101 lecture has recently sounded like one sustained 50-minute cough, so today I decided to see if I could find some empirical evidence of that. For 10 minutes, I tuned my delicate ear to all the pleasant sounds reverberating throughout McCosh 50. (Sadly I made no field recordings.) Between the hours of 11:08 and 11:18 a.m., I tallied 99 coughs – on average, someone coughed every 6 seconds.

Some analysis:

  • Coughs ranged in character, from unabashed, wet hacking to polite, muffled throat clearing. Mostly the former.
  • There were a few repeat offenders, but overall the coughs appeared evenly distributed throughout the ~400 person lecture.
  • Coughs often occurred in little bursts, as if the very sound of someone else’s cough could serve as a reminder to dislodge all the phlegm clogging your own throat. This phenomenon is a promising line of inquiry for future studies.
  • No hard data to support this claim, but I would estimate that the sniffle count was approximately three times the number of coughs.
  • Professor Blinder seemed immune to the contagion.
  • Coughing does not make for a environment conducive to learning, according to students/me.

Get well soon, everybody. Please.


Taped to doors in Whitman. (Fire Safety violation detected!)

Taped to doors in Whitman. (Fire Safety violation?)

How are all the lonely hearts out there, Princeton? Hope you’re not avoiding any and all pink and red this February 14th, because campus is sure glowing with it this sunny afternoon.

Student Global AIDS Campaign’s Condomgrams are turning out to be a big hit in Frist mailboxes this year. And if you’re looking for last-minute gift ideas? You might be able to swing some chocolate truffles for your sweetheart on the first floor of Frist. Or if you’re looking for something a bit more divine, check out “Will You Be My Valentine? God, Dating, and Marriage” at 5:30pm tonight at Murray Dodge.

In other news, Valentine’s Day at Princeton is shaping up to be a box of (awkward) chocolates. I now give you some samplings of my V-Day campus reporting:

The Sweet (?):
Hey WOM professor! What’s the lesson plan for today? [She hands out chocolates like we were in grade school] I thought this might offset the topic of the today’s lecture: Contextualizing the Rape/Sexual Violence against Women in Colonial Spanish America.
I think I’m going to need more chocolate.

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Two weeks is how long it usually takes for me to settle into a new semester. Classes are finalized, we’re done with all our auditions, applications and initiations, and we start getting into a routine. Unfortunately, that routine typically consists of a sleep-around-3, breakfast-once-in-a-while, Small World-twice-a-day pattern with little space for all my post-Intersession “BE HEALTHY THIS SEMESTER!!” resolutions.

Good thing Princeton cares about maintaining the well-being of our minds and bodies, if not of our heavily burdened GPAs. There’s a whole range of fitness options available for incorporation into our schedules this semester, all of which are new, fun, and most importantly, FREE.

Mmm, nothing like a sun salutation in front of the Woody Woo fountain to start the day off right. (Photo from lululemon.com)

Mmm, nothing like a sun salutation in front of the Woody Woo fountain to start the day off right. (Photo from lululemon.com)

This week is Yoga Week, featuring workshops all week on topics ranging from breathing and eating to ”playing with prana (energy) in handstand, headstand and elbow stand.” You know, the basics. All Dillon yoga classes are also free this week. And if you discover an inner passion for the yogi’s lifestyle, the Yoga Club offers a staggering 6 free classes/week throughout the semester. If that’s not enough, Lululemon on Nassau also offers free yoga classes every Sunday morning. No experience or special equipment necessary — as the website says, just bring yourself.

If you’ve ever left a Disiac show in wistful regret for quitting ballet in 3rd grade, it’s not too late. The Lewis Center for the Arts recently started offering free ballet classes for all Princeton students. All levels are welcome, with beginner/intermediate classes on Saturdays, intermediate/advanced Mondays-Fridays, and advanced/pre-professional class on Saturday mornings.

Finally, for those who don’t want to break away from GTSL (S added for studying. Sorry, this is Princeton. We can’t just GTL our way through it), the USG is sponsoring free classes at Dillon all semester. Here’s the schedule:

Spinning: Mondays-Thursdays, 5:30 pm
BodyAttack: Wednesdays, 5:00-5:50 pm
Butts and Guts: Mondays, 6:00-6:50 pm
BodyPump: Tuesdays and Thursdays, 5:00-6:00 pm

No excuses for not being in shape when spring hits us this year, guys. Let’s goooo.

The scene: Wednesday, 12:30 pm, outside of Frist.

The crimes: Assaulting passerby’s with ‘toilet paper,’ false advertising, and generating general mayhem.

The perpetrator: Chou Chou ’13

Your not-so-friendly neighborhood TP distributor

Your not-so-friendly neighborhood TP distributor

People mingling outside of Frist on Wednesday were surprised when one student began setting up his table just under the North arches, arranging a display of rolled up paper pyramid-style. He began chucking the paper at bystanders, yelling, “Free toilet paper! You look like you want some free toilet paper!” And, off to the side, “Sir, madam, may I interest you in some toilet paper?”

When asked about his behavior, Chou explained, “The university is giving out free toilet paper! It’s double ply, just the way we want it!”

When pressed for more details, Chou glanced side to side, and muttered, “I can’t say that much. The people making me do this, well … let’s just say it starts with a ‘T’ and ends in an ‘-errace.’”

The perpetrator remained on scene for 30 minutes.

Experts believe the bizarre event was one of a series of pranks associated with eating club initiations; rumors abound of other students distributing Spanx and cigarettes throughout the week. Keep your eyes peeled for additional offerings happening today!

The piece de resistance? "Hey! Is that Daily Pr - ... could it be?!"

The pièce de résistance? "Hey! Is that Daily Pr - ... could it be?!"

I’ll be honest: without Jane Randall on ANTM and CDY and Jonathan Schwartz on The Amazing Race, I was starting to go into serious Princeton-on-TV withdrawal.  For a couple of months, the Orange Bubble achieved the pinnacle of mainstream media fame — and then the world promptly forgot us, and I could no longer use the excuse of, “Oh you know, just keeping up with what’s going on around campus,” when a five-minute study break turned into a Hulu marathon.

But on Tuesday, Princeton will be back for another fifteen minutes of reality TV fame when our very own House of Cupcakes will compete for a sweet $10,000 prize on the Food Network’s Cupcake Wars.  Ruthie and Ron Bzdewka, HOC’s owners, will battle three other master bakers in a series of elimination challenges until just one cupcake genius remains.

cupcake

Go on ... you know you want one!

Don’t let the sugar and cute factor fool you — this is war, and may the best cupcake win.  So grab some of HOC’s creations (the red velvet flavor is their most popular, and perfect for a post-Valentine’s Day screening) and tune in to the Food Network channel at 9pm on Tuesday, 2/15 to watch the Bzdewkas battle for cupcake glory.  And in case you needed another reason to root for the home team, if HOC wins they’ll donate the prize to St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital.

File under “phrases I would not want to find on my homework.” A tipster who is currently enrolled in COS 423: Analysis of Algorithms showed us this choice excerpt from their first problem set:

6. (Extra credit) We proved in class that if we use a regular or strictly regular redundant binary representation, adding 1 changes at most 3 digits, which means that counting from 0 to n takes at most 3n digit changes, whereas counting to from 0 to n using the standard binary representation takes at most 2n digit changes.  But is the 3n tight?  Use an amortized analysis to obtain the best upper bound you can (best constant factor) on the total number of digit changes to count from 0 to n using (a) the regular representation (regular addition) and (b) the strictly regular representation (strictly regular addition). This problem is extra credit because I don’t (yet) know the answer.

Yes, Robert Tarjan — star professor in the Computer Science department and recipient of the Turing Award, the field’s highest distinction — assigned an exercise that even he didn’t quite know the answer to. Something of an intimidating assignment.

Because this problem could bear some translating, COS 423 student Ajay Roopakalu ’13 helped put it in layman’s terms. He explained that some aspects of algorithms analysis are a “science” while other aspects are an “art.” In an amortized analysis, there is room for creativity; you can tinker with the variables of the potential function to produce slightly different bounds on time. The professor was basically seeing if they could design a function with “better time bounds than the one classically used.” Tarjan should be commended for this novel, if ambitious, idea: assign open problems to your students and see if something brilliant pops out!

This couple has been competing together for 12 years straight. Can we get any cuter?

This couple has been competing together for 12 years straight. Could our town get any cuter?

When I mentioned to a friend that I was going to the New Jersey Oyster Bowl on Sunday, he looked confused for a second – “What, is that like, an ocean science competition?”

Typical Princeton kid. Unfortunately, the Oyster Bowl isn’t related to marine biology in any way. It is, however, a perfect example of the small-town charm that surrounds our university. For the 12th year in a row, hundreds of townies gathered at Blue Point Grill on Nassau Street this Sunday (if you haven’t been there, I can now vouch for their amazing oysters and clam chowder, and I’m sure the other dishes are great too. Dinner only, though) for Princeton’s 12th annual Super Bowl Sunday oyster-slurping contest!

Highlights included a surprise appearance by Congressman Rush Holt, a competitor who’d been on Hell’s Kitchen with Gordon Ramsay, and a thrilling one-minute slurp-off between the two women’s finalists – one of whom had cut her finger on an oyster shell in an earlier round, but still slurped her way to victory with blood dripping into her cocktail sauce, refusing to take a band-aid in case she accidentally ate it. Hardcore? Yeah. Fo real.

Maybe someone from our undergraduate student body should compete next year – the grand prize last year was a trip for 2 to Cancun, and this year’s was a vacation in the Caribbean. Plus, all the proceeds went to support the Susan G. Komen Foundation for breast cancer research. If your eating club serves oysters, start practicing now.

More town cuteness available at the Princeton Packet.