Intuition, so we gon' have to win and come for some business
The world is mine and you gon' have to pay me attention

(Note: The opening lyrics are from the song “Elevate” which is the framework for my posts from 2019 onward. Click back a few posts for more context. )

What was it like going to Princeton?

It’s a question I got for a few years after graduation, but like anything, what you’ve done becomes less important than what you’re doing now. The question faded and the orange and black has become less and less present in my closet. Since then, there were moments of pride – learning Bruce Wayne was a Princeton student - or moments of feeling significant – learning of Princetonians who have a more direct impact on my day to day life – Eric Schmidt, Sonia Sotamayor, Michelle Obama, Toni Morrison. People whose legacies, both good and bad, are affecting what life is like in 2026.

But… what was Princeton like? I often think about what it wasn’t. I arrived in 2002 and graduated in 2006. For those four years, I cannot remember seeing one TV show while I was on campus. Prison Break, Lost, Survivor – lost to the time I needed to focus on coursework that needed to be done. Other things that weren’t on my radar for those years – taking time to reflect, to pause, to wonder what these courses would lead to.

That makes it sound dramatic, but there are a lot of other memories of what it was like.

It’s Friday night, the fall of Freshman year. I have a hoodie on, a Snapple, and a too-sweet morning glory muffin I’ve pulled from my bag, making use of some leftover dining points from Frist Campus Center. My study group to make sense of the physics problem set disbanded a while ago, and I’ve trudged over to the residential college library to admit that I still have no idea what this problem set is about. I shuffle some papers, take out a MacBook and find some of the music I’ve streamed off Limewire. The 9AM Friday physics quiz that has marked the weeks of campus life like an unforgiving metronome, looms. I read the chapter again, look at my notes, finish the problem set, without quite understanding the answer set, and call it a night. It’s a short walk back to my dorm. They call it a suite, but it’s seven guys in a hallway with our own bathroom. Sweet? The sounds of Goldeneye on a busted N64 greet me as I dump my bag and give knowing looks to the engineers who are resting while the non-engineers up their virtual kill count and get ready for a rowdy Thursday night.

Friday morning comes, and somehow the quiz is accomplished. I finish the morning with French and chemistry and wonder how I end up eating at the Center for Jewish Life with people I’ve befriended the past few weeks. It’s my music theory class that gives my brain a break. Well, not a break, because don’t let anyone fool you, music theory is just a different part of your brain, not necessarily easier. Some days the professor plays a song, and you’re supposed to write down the song on staff paper after hearing it a few times without an instrument or your voice to play it back. I don’t do well on those exercises. After five hours on a Friday, I’ve walked a few miles around the campus, taken a quiz, listened to knowledgeable professors, heard from students from around the world and there’s still half of the day left to tackle.

I fill my non-study time with activities – some I stick with, mostly music related – Jazz Ensemble, Chapel Choir, some campus Christian groups, the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics – others I don’t – flag football, club tennis, the National Society of Black Engineers, the campus marching band.

On the eve of our 20th Princeton reunion, I’d sum up my Princeton experience as conflicted. This is my experience, not anyone else’s but I’m guessing others may feel similar. On one side, you know that there are resources around you that will change the world, classmates who will become senators, business leaders, or at the very least, the workers who will enable both of the former. But at the same time, you balance the day-to-day minutiae of surviving your classes, convincing your family that you are still healthy (much different than actually being healthy), and counting the days until your next break. The first two and a half years at Princeton were more of the minutiae, and when I think reflexively, I can taste the nervously consumed muffins and Snapples, waiting for a “click” of understanding but sometimes feeling helpless. It was only in the later years of my time at Princeton, that the hopefulness had space to make an appearance. Meeting the pilot of SpaceShip One and driving him to the airport, helping arrange music for a future Toni-award nominee director, attending tens of musicals and shows in New York, singing at Carnegie Hall (with 70 other people). It indeed was an amazing place, but along the way, some people did not get to the see the switch flip – from tedious to hopeful. Some dropped a class, some took an extra semester, some never finished a thesis, only to officially graduate tens of years later. Some even transferred, and in the bleakest cases, took their own lives.

So, for our 20th reunion, like the world around us, everyone has their own story, their own chance to change the world. Make sure you give them space to hear it, or the support and time to make it heard.

(Note: The opening lyrics are from the song “Elevate” which is the framework for my posts from 2019 onward. Click back a few posts for more context. )