Princeton

( Julie is currently working on this page, since it was previously a stub. It will take a while to complete, so bear with me (ahhh bear!!). Feel free to add, just know that it is not yet complete.)

The Princeton site was in 2006 for students who had aged out of the CTY programs. The JHU CTY program has been tweaking the site every year, and actually listening to students, so as to improve the quality of the new site. Only a handful of CTYers continue on to the Princeton program, but with the recent improvements in staff and the overall program, it should now be seen as a wonderful choice after CTY.

Location

The Princeton site, is of course, at Princeton University. A horribly complicated campus. Because it is so easy to get lost around campus, students are not allowed to wander/explore on their own.

Princeton Courses

• Advanced Cryptology

• Epidemiology, Re-emerging Infectious Diseases, and Pandemics

• Global Politics: Human Rights and Justice

• Human Nature and Technology

• Memoirs of War

• Politics and Film

Human Nature and Technology

Daniel Estrada taught section A in 2008 and 2009 with John, also from Lancaster, as a TA. Section B was taught by Michele Merritt and Diana. This is a favorite among students, and the only one that doesn't take existence for granted. During the first week, students learn basic philosophies of the mind. After establishing the fact that we don't know anything, they introduce the idea that all technology changes our definition of ourselves. Students study philosophers from Ancient Greece to those still going out for a drink with certain instructors. This course is challenging and definitely up to CTY standards. It is this CTYer's 2nd favorite class she has taken. (It culminated with a viewing of Wall.E. <3)

Staff

RA's

There were two returning RA's this year, JC and Katrina.

• JC- There has been a religion created around the awesomeness of JC. He de-mined Cambodia in Middle School. 'Nuff said. He is currently taking a year off from school to work at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC. He also writes amazing poetry.
• James- Went to Carlisle as a student. He is 19, but he is going to be a senior at Harvard. Another fabulous RA. He was the DJ for all of the dances, and made sure to play lots of current music, some favorites, and of course, the high holy canon at every dance. He also taught students how to rave, and made sure to play enough techno so that a circle could be formed and ravers could, well rave.

Discussion

• More people will slowly show up over the years as more hear of it. ~Yulia

• From CTY Therapy. For those too lazy to read, it sounds as if the campus itself isn't that amazing and the staff is fumbling around to figure out what's going on. Otherwise, it sounds that the people are amazing there and it's worth it to go.

• I went!

And I'm so sad it's over.

I think the best part about it was that it was only older kids. Also, it was a really small campus, which was nice. There were only 120 kids. Only one kid (that I know of) didn't go to any other CTY program.

The dorms weren't air conditioned (which was unbearable a couple of days) and there was a LOT of walking from each of our buildings.

Um...the classes seemed to be really interesting. I took epidemiology which had the potential to be really amazing, but it seemed like the teacher didn't really know where he was going because it was the first year of the class. At least our teacher was amazing. We got Dr. Ted who taught History of Disease I believe.

The activities were pretty lame and the dances weren't all that great (mainly because we didn't have a consistent place to have them and they decided to play a LOT of rap). Forced fun on the weekends was also pretty bad.

One really good thing, however, was that we were actually allowed to go off campus this year. For one of our activity periods per week we were allowed to sign out to go through the tow of Princeton for two hours. That was pretty sweet.

The RAs were cool, especially my RA (Alice). They were more laid back at the beginning, but as the session progressed, they got to be more strict. It seemed like Princeton was trying to find any reason to not invite us back next year. So by the end of the session, the RAs were paranoid about following the rules. But...hopefully they do have it again...because it was really fun.

To be honest, I have a feeling that CTY Princeton had its first and last year this year. The campus was really crowded with other camps and Princeton kept getting mad at us for the stupidest little things. I I don't think they liked us very much. Omega17

• The program was amazing for being CTYish, but I agree with Sarah on the paranoia thing. I think that will improve in other years if we get invited back, because this year we really had to tiptoe around everyone else. Hopefully, they will take student suggestions and have less mandatory fun on weekends and less rap at the dances (even the major hip-hop people were ticked off that Stairway didn't get played). We had traditions like American Pie and Passionfruit, and otherwise just had fun. For example, my hall+a few others had an emo Wednesday, and several of us got together a Rocky Horror cast for 2nd Saturday's dance. It was totally worth it, but not for everybody.

Also, my class, Advanced Crypto B, was taught by an NSA guy. He had to be declassified to teach us, and there was a lot he couldn't tell us, which was annoying but intriguing. It was up there as one of my favorite CTY courses. Bohorseok

• Okay, so I confess: I was not a CTY Princeton student, but I spent a ridiculous amount of time there anyway. I crashed Meet Market, snuck into dances, and hung out with CTY Princeton friends during dinner.

This might tell you something about the laxity of CTY Princeton RAs. Anonymous

• The above commenter, if I know who she is, is a 2005 nomore of the Carlisle variety like myself who lives in Princeton. Although her presence was perhaps a large part of what made my Princeton(tm) experience so enjoyable, she hits the nail on the head about the general environment there. Strict rules aside, the place was a party. The classes, if untested and fresh, were up to the CTY standard, but the rest of the environment was anarchy by compared to Carlisle. Students regularly snuck off of campus for dinner, visited with other campus groups, skipped activities (I walked out of the mandatory viewing of the World Cup mandatory fun for two hours), held wrestling competitions and illegal sleepovers after dark and more or less acted with impunity. I enjoyed myself. -Yoda, CAR 2002.1-2005.1; PRN 2006.1

• I went, and it was just as awesome as any other CTY I've attended.

Well, not quite. The standards must have been lower or something, because the kids there weren't all cream of the crop. Lots of them were very very immature and unpleasant, and we had a huge hip-hop crowd who didn't want any canon at all to be played. Not to mention that the campus was horrible. One of our classrooms was a mile from our dorms, and we had to walk there and back every day, and getting to the dining hall was quite a trek. Princeton had terrible weather, and the dorms weren't air conditioned, which absolutely killed in 80 degree weather, with perhaps 90% humidity. I may be exaggerating, but that's what it felt like. It was literally the armpit of the world.

But some people were awesome, and my class was fantastic. All in all I'm SO SO SO glad I went. Anonymous

IN reply to that...I just checked the Princeton website, the standards are only CAA standards (410 grade7, 560 grade 10 <--WTF?!) I guess that's why, and also they aren't very clear on the admissions process (highest SAT scores?) -Liza

• Does anyone know about the differences between CTY Princeton Advanced Cryptology and regular CTY Cryptology? I've been looking at classes for this year and was considering Crypto, but I don't want to take something that's pretty much the same as a class I've already taken. - Steve

• Advanced Crypto A, the in 2006, was taught by a Princeton math professor, so it was a lot of math. Lots of proofs and work with modulo. The first week was spent as a review of cyphers and basic theory. The second week got into RSA and modern cryptosystems, and the third week was crazy: we split into two teams prepared scavenger hunts for the other team while still doing some learning. It's really good to have someone in your class who can program his/her calculator. - Alex R/&y2

• BTW, can anyone tell me if my SAT score 640CR 650M in grade 7 would let me in? Because I know what the official requirements are...but I just don't know what the 'real' score requirements are..