Ryan Marrinan ’07 majored in English and earned a certificate in finance — a combination of interests that resulted in a unique course of study. For his interdisciplinary junior paper, he studied concepts of value in works of fiction. “The principal question of finance is how you value something,” says Marrinan. “So why don’t we look at literature as a hint?”

Marrinan is thrilled to have had the opportunity to form close personal and academic relationships with some of the foremost minds in literary criticism, philosophy and creative writing. During his first semester at Princeton, he took a freshman seminar with esteemed professor Cornel West, who later became one of Marrinan’s thesis advisers.

“Cornel West is one of those professors who really inspire you,” says Marrinan. “He even inspires you to change your life in a radical way—to turn away from the trivial and move toward the substantial.”

The high school athlete from Calabasas, California, knew he wanted competitive sports to be a part of his college life. A big reason Marrinan chose to come to Princeton is because of sprint football, a varsity sport for players who weigh 172 pounds or less.

There are only five sprint football teams in the nation and Princeton plays them all, even traveling to play Navy on the historic field at Annapolis, Maryland. Marrinan didn’t mind that Navy usually crushed Princeton; he just enjoyed the experience of high-level athletics and all the great people he met on the team.

“The sprint football team doesn’t recruit at all, which makes for an interesting, eclectic mix of people,” says Marrinan. “There are people talking quantum mechanics on the sideline.”

A self-described “beach boy,” Marrinan says he was convinced to move to New Jersey by a friend who was already at Princeton. “He absolutely sold me,” says Marrinan, who was particularly impressed by the University’s strong undergraduate focus. Now he understands why his friend was so insistent.

As a student, Marrinan was an officer with the Orange Key campus tours. “We got ridiculous numbers of people trying out to be guides,” he says. “About 80 to 90 try out for 30 slots. It’s an unpaid position, so that just goes to show how dedicated Princetonians are to their school.” 

During his sophomore year, Marrinan and a friend founded the Princeton Gaelic Society to promote awareness of what he calls “the Irish literary genius.” Marrinan, who holds dual Irish and American citizenship, worked closely with Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and professor Paul Muldoon to serve as a liaison between Muldoon’s Fund for Irish Studies and the student body at large.