Princeton
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( 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 created 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.
Contents
Princeton Courses
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.
Dorms
CTY PRN only uses two of the dorms on campus, Henry and Foulke. They are next to each other and are connected with an archway. Students are allowed to hang out on the quad outside of these buildings and around the archway during unstructured time. One building houses all the female halls, and the other houses the men. The girls' dorm also houses the health office, the main office, and all of the administrative offices. They are not air conditioned. Bring fans. The dorms have suites and singles with dressers, bookcases, desks, and closets. Some rooms have balconies, and all rooms have windows that open and come with screens to let cool air in and keep bugs out. Most bathrooms are okay. Third floor entrance one didn't have doors on their stalls, instead there were shower curtains that didn't quite do the job. Bring shower shoes, and be prepared for some awkward early morning bathroom incidents.
Dining Hall
The Rocky dining hall is a hike from the dorms. Students are allowed to leave their dorms at 8 o'clock to walk to the dining hall. It is down the street from the droms, past the UStore, under an archway, up some stairs, and across a quad. The dining hall resembles the Great Hall at Hogwarts. There are long tables to sit at up and down the room and two circular tables. One sat at by the Oval Table Mafia. The food is decent, although frequently mislabeled, such as the Potato Puffs that were labeled as Eggplant Parmigiana one morning. There is a salad bar, pb&j station, fresh fruit, hot meals, cereal, a table of rotating desserts,and different flavors of ice cream at every meal. One of the favorite ice creams was Passionfruit Sorbet, that only lasted a day, for obvious reasons.
Also, due to some legal precautions, signs are somewhat frequently hilarious. One morning, there was a sign that said, "Bacon (Contains Pork)"
Classrooms
All students have class (as well as Opening and Closing Ceremonies) in McCosh Hall. The building is abnormally cold in some classrooms, especially in the basement (dungeon) in which the GPOL classes were held. But in other classrooms, the air conditioning was not working for much of the first week. The classrooms were a bit of a walk from the dining hall, but it was a nice time to wake up, talk to friends, and walk extremely slowly to make morning classes a bit shorter. All classes have lunch at 12, which makes the morning class a tad long, especially when you don't get much sleep the night before...
McCosh 50, the location of Opening Ceremonies, the Talent Show, and Closing Ceremonies, was also the room in which several of the class scenes for Transformers 2 were filmed. This is not in any way an endorsement of the movie, just an interesting fact.
Dances/Casino Night
The dances were held in a multi-cultural house a few blocks away from the dorms. So this walk was not fun when wearing heels for the dance. It was nice though, walking back from the dance because it would be nice and cool outside, so you would be at a comfortable temperature by the time you got back to the dorms.
Casino night was held in another house a walk away from the dorms, past the WaWa that some students snuck out to.
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)
Global Politics: Human Rights and Justice
Global Politics, or simply GPOL, had four sections in 2009. Each class is structured slightly differently, and approaches the issues of human rights in a different manner, but all note the history of human rights and human rights violations, and later move on to wrestle with the overwhelmingly large question of the role human rights should take in a nation's foreign policy. This issue is addressed through simulations, debates, and class discussions on current and recent human rights issues, such as torture, genocide, and relief efforts.
Staff
Main Office
The main office staff was actually quite wonderful. On many occasions, I needed to use the internet and copier, and they were always willing to help. They also had a water cooler that they always let me use.
Boyd
Boyd is one of the full time employees of the JHU CTY program, and he was one of the founders of the Princeton site. He began working for CTY over the summers teaching Crafting the Essay and Pop Cult. He fell in love with the students, and found himself working year-round with the program. He had taught high school and college English, and he says that his favorite group to teach were the CTYers. His love for the program comes across whenever you talk to him. (Which I suggest you do) He loves the traditions and the quirky students. For example, he asked two students to talk about their experience at CTY at closing ceremonies, Alex Pressman and Julie, and he introduced Alex by commenting on the pretty floral sundress he wore on Drag Day, while he introduced Julie as the God of Blammo. Boyd has also said that he promotes the return of CTYers as RAs, TAs, and Instructors, which busts the myths that CTY somehow discourages the return of students as staff.
Health Office
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.
Instructors and TA's
Activities
Dances
- The dances had refreshments. These usually consisted of cookies, chips, sprite, soda, diet soda, and water. Which was a very nice change from Lancaster dances, which didn't even have water other than the water fountain.
- During the dances, a nicely air conditioned room played decent movies, like Jurassic Park and Harry Potter 5.
- James Fish was the DJ for every dance. He is a CTY Carlisle alum, so he understood the necessity to play the Canonat every dance. He played a lot of hip hop, but that is unavoidable because that's what teenagers nowadays apparently like to listen to. But favorites were thrown in that everyone could dance to.
Mandatory Fun
Tri-Muggle Tournament
Interestingly enough, this was actually nonmandatory. Students had the option to sit out and watch others go through such fun activities as the dizzy bat, hunting blindfolded for a penny in a tub of jello, running around within a square in lines of four in an imitation of a dragon. (The way to win this event was to grab the other dragon's tail, which was a flag held by the last member of each chain.)
Pretty much what this boiled down to, however, was sitting on the grass for three and a half hours watching other people make fools of themselves. So only slightly more entertaining than actually going and looking stupid yourself.
Casino Night
Casino Night, a tradition at several CTY sites, travelled over to Princeton. The first Saturday of the session, the students and staff travel to a dining hall other than Rocky for casino games. A marriage booth is available for the cost of $20 (in casino money). Any CTYer who ran out of money and wished to get more need only approach one of the Godfathers (RAs and staff members) for a task to complete.
As always, a movie option is offered for those uninterested in taking part in the games. Also available was a karoake room.
Scavenger Hunt
Another fun weekend activity was the Scavenger Hunt, an event which pretty much had CTY students running around with their halls and grabbing random strangers from the campus in order to have them sing "Bah Bah Black Sheep," recognize the fact that the students lying in weird shapes on the ground ACTUALLY spelled out CTY, or being forced to listen to students ask for directions in what usually turned out to be an 'orrible British accent. There were also noncreeperish activities, such as getting a CTY shirt off Boyd's back. He had only two, which meant many groups were disappointed. (One group went so far as to take their own CTY shirt, put it on Boyd's back, then take it off, a very innovative solution.)
Also on the list were such things as finding a four-leaf clover, a bird feather, a business card, a map, and a flying cow. Yes, a flying cow.
There were several prizes for winning the Scavenger Hunt, such as an extra trip into town and candy.
Similarly to the Tri-Muggle Tournament, students were given the option of sitting out. However, if their hall won a prize, they would be denied a share.
A major point that made this different from the Tri-Muggle Tournament was that sitting out no longer came with the entertainment of watching people running around doing stupid things, so fewer people tend to choose that option.
The Scavenger Hunt ends at the Fountain, which halls must find for themselves within the time limit. If they do not arrive there before time is up, they are disqualified.
Kyle's hall ended up winning the scavenger hunt by a very large margin. Their domination was aided by the fact that they found exactly 42 fire hydrants (each fire hydrant found was worth one point), although only 20 were counted.
Things We Like/Traditions Migrating To Princeton
Princeton Passionfruit
In 2009, the Princeton Passionfruit adopted a combination of the styles of Passionfruit at Lancaster, Carlisle, and Siena. To reflect this, Passionfruit was presided over by two emperors: Rachel Hall (Carlisle) and Julie Leghorn (Lancaster), and an empress: Johnine Licht (Siena).
Rachel Hall
"When I first thought about coming to Princeton for CTY this year, I was a little skeptical. I'd spent four years on the same campus with the same people, laughing at the same inside jokes. And then I got here, and...well, honestly, it was pretty much what I feared. I didn't really see anyone I considered REAL CTYers, and it upset me. But the thing is...I was wrong. There ARE real CTYers here, and not just the kids right next to me. So many of you guys ARE real CTYers. Maybe not as insane, but that's okay. So...
- To Real CTYers.
- To being up all night at laughing at things that really shouldn't be funny.
- To my hall.
- To Brynn.
- To BANANA, Little Cabin in the Woods, Center for Thank You, "working" in the library, and waffles.
- To random dance parties.
- To grass.
- To bears and zombies.
- To Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays.
- To being force fed.
- To never being quite a nomore or a nevermore.
- To not saying goodbye.
- To life, to love, to CTY.
I love CTY and I love the Passionfruit." --7/17/09
