setzer557

To all the current Princeton students, what is something that you don't like about Princeton (no matter how small/insignificant)?

TheMoment...I

Writing Seminars.

JoeTrumpet

They keep the dorms too warm during the winter. I remember just last week in my Chinese class, all five people who were asked--who happened to live in 5 distinct colleges of the 6--said they all kept the windows open, myself included. Statistical anomaly or trend, I'm not sure, but to me it seems like a silly waste of energy. They could turn it down a little.

TheMoment...I

I guess this isnt true for all dorms, but our dorm has a thermostat so we can control the heating.

laipi14159

My dorm has a radiator, but you can sort-of control that. Generally what my roommate and I do is turn it on for 5 minutes, the room gets hot, and slowly let the room cool down. Rinse and repeat.

But for what I don't like...
I'm taking a writing seminar in the spring, so I can't speak to that. But from what I've heard, the writing seminars are a LOT of work.

Right now, the only thing I don't like about Princeton is that the football team wasn't so great. But nonetheless my friends and I still got all face and body-painted up to go to the games. Most of our other sports are very VERY good. The perception that Princeton is a school of nerds or rich idiots is very very far from the truth.

Ladylike

writing seminars??! can you explain more?
_what are you expected to write about?

sunshine_breeze

Writing Seminar is the university's way of making we all know how to write academic papers.

The quality of the teaching and the interesting-ness of the topic varies widely among the different seminars. While all the writing seminars have the same amount of writing (3 papers and one slightly smaller Dean's Date assignment) the amount of reading is very different. The grading is also very varied among writing seminars.

You write all of your papers on the topic of your seminar. There are lots, mine was Magic in the Middle Ages. My friends have taken things like Color, Archeologies of Sex and Gender, Theater in Everyday Life, Motown, etc. So our papers are research papers on topics within those subjects or based off of readings.

All in all, it really depends on the writing seminar that you get put in. I feel that the general consensus of most people I've talked to is that they didn't learn much about writing in their writing seminars but more on the topic that they picked.

misralz

JoeTrumpet, are you in one of the older buildings? I wear shorts in my room. I know they use steam from the cogeneration power plant to heat some buildings, but I'm not sure if they use it for any dorms.

I dislike having exams after winter break. Is there another school that uses this schedule?

Ladylike

that honestly sounds nice, atleast you'll have a wide range which will give you some since of freedom in writing!

*about the dorms being too hot, i guess they just dont want you to catch a cold!

ivanadoeslimbo

It can be extremely difficult. But that's something you kind of expect going into it...