Academic Resources

The Office of the Dean of the College

The dean of the college is responsible for overseeing the undergraduate curriculum, for applying regulations concerning undergraduate academic standing, and for supervising services and agencies designed to promote the academic development of all undergraduates. (258-5519, www.princeton.edu/odoc)

Academic Programs of Special Interest

Freshman Seminars. The Freshman Seminar Program offers first-year students the opportunity to work in a small-group setting with a professor on a topic of special interest. Seminars are limited in size to 15 students, who are selected on the basis of a short essay application. Each seminar is hosted by a residential college, and collectively they sponsor special events, such as film series, guest lectures, or cultural excursions.

A booklet describing this year's seminars is mailed to you over summer and, while it is too late to enroll in a fall seminar, applications for spring seminars will be available in your residential college prior to spring-term course selection. (www.princeton.edu/pr/pub/fs)

Useful Publications

Academic Guide. This guide includes information about academic requirements as well as advice about planning your academic program and taking advantage of special options and other opportunities. (www.princeton.edu/pr/pub/agf)

Rights, Rules, Responsibilities. This guide includes regulations regarding University policies, academic integrity, and conduct. Please pay particular attention to the sections about proper citation and about the submission of academic work. If you have any questions whatsoever about these matters, consult your college dean or director of studies. Princeton students assume full responsibility for honesty in written examinations, which are not supervised. The obligations of the honor system are explained in detail in Rights, Rules, Responsibilities, which also includes the Constitution of the Honor System, originally adopted by Princeton undergraduates in 1893. (www.princeton.edu/pr/pub/rrr)

Academic Integrity at Princeton. This booklet is a helpful companion to Rights, Rules, Responsibilities and offers guidance about the ways in which you can safeguard the integrity of your own academic work. In it you will find detailed information about the proper ways to acknowledge your sources. The booklet provides helpful definitions, discussions and examples of plagiarism, collaboration, and common knowledge, in addition to requirements governing Web-based and other nonprint material. (www.princeton.edu/pr/pub/integrity/)

Undergraduate Announcement. This is the complete listing of all courses, academic departments, and programs. (www.princeton.edu/pr/catalog/ua)

Academic Resources Outside the Classroom

All learning does not take place in the classroom. There are a number of formal and informal settings on campus designed to enhance your learning experience and deepen your understanding of the diverse community that is Princeton. The list of services, places, programs, and opportunities that follows is not exhaustive by any means, but is provided to give you examples of the resources available to you.

Group Review Sessions. Conducted in the residential colleges, review sessions are coordinated by the residential college dean or directors of studies. Graduate students and advanced upperclass students lead the sessions. The academic areas usually covered are chemistry, mathematics, economics, physics, and foreign languages.

McGraw Study Hall @Frist. Study Halls take place from 7:30 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. in the fall term in Frist Campus Center, Sunday through Wednesday. Two graduate students in engineering and three undergraduates usually staff Study Halls. Subjects covered include freshman-level mathematics, physics, and chemistry courses. Various departments also run review sessions for freshmen, and the chemistry department has a resource center in Frick open to students on a drop-in basis. (258-5519)

The McGraw Center for Teaching and Learning. For many students, the transition from high school to college can be challenging. How can you do all of that reading? How do you study for a subject you've never taken before? What do you do when a professor tests you on material you haven't gone over in class? Working with McGraw Center consultants, students can learn which study skills to work on in order to be successful students at Princeton. McGraw consultants can suggest specific strategies for developing or improving those skills. The center offers workshops on topics such as reading, time management, and exam preparation. Students also may meet with staff on a one-on-one basis. For the workshop schedule or to make an individual appointment, visit www.princeton.edu/mcgraw.

Individual Tutoring. Under the auspices of the Office of the Dean of the College, this service is available to students referred by a faculty member or by their director of studies. These individual tutorials mainly are conducted by undergraduates (and a few graduate students) who have been recommended by their departments.

Writing Center. The Writing Center located in Whitman College is staffed by graduate students and coordinated by the director of the Princeton Writing Program. Students can use the center's services on a drop-in basis or by appointment. (258-2702, web.princeton.edu/sites/writing/Writing_Center/WCAbout.htm)

Career Services. The Office of Career Services assists students interested in career guidance, full-time employment, summer job opportunities, internships, resume preparation, and vocational testing. The office arranges interviews with schools and businesses and coordinates the Alumni Careers Network, a worldwide database of more than 4,500 alumni volunteers who provide guidance and job-hunting assistance. (258-3325, www.princeton.edu/career)

Residential Education Program. The Residential Education Program offers a variety of programs and events that address issues of community concern. Two of these programs — “Sex on a Saturday Night” and “Reflections on Diversity” — are presented during Orientation for the freshman class, and follow-up discussions take place in the dormitories in small groups. Other programs are scheduled throughout the year, and programs targeted to address specific needs and concerns can be “ordered in” by RCAs for presentation to individual advisee groups. If you have a special concern or if you identify an issue that you believe needs to be addressed or explored more deeply, feel free to talk with your advisers about the possibility of scheduling an order-in program and to offer suggestions for new programs.

Financial Aid and Student Employment

As you probably already know, Princeton has arguably the best financial aid program in the country (if not the world). The University has made an unprecedented commitment to being affordable to all students, regardless of their families' financial circumstances. (Financial aid at Princeton is awarded based on demonstrated financial need, and covers the full need of all students without any loans to pay back!) Counselors in the Undergraduate Financial Aid Office can tell you how Princeton's need-based financial aid system works, and they may be able to adjust your award if there's a change in your personal or family circumstances.

The Student Employment Office helps undergraduates find jobs on and off campus, and those students who qualify for financial aid are given priority for campus employment. Student Agencies are student-operated enterprises that employ more than 700 students every year. (www.princeton.edu/aid)

The University Library

Princeton undergraduates have access to more than 6 million printed volumes, 3 million microforms, and thousands of online journals. The library system's staff includes expert reference and subject specialists who can assist you in meeting your study and research interests.

Resources of special interest include:

These resources reflect the interdisciplinary nature of African American studies at Princeton. A resource of particular note is the collection of primary materials available on microfilm, which contains the papers of many prominent individuals, including John and Eugenia Hope, Paul Robeson, and Claude Barnett. The papers of major civil rights organizations, including the NAACP, the Congress of Racial Equality, and the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, also are part of this valuable collection.

The library houses an extensive range of material in Chinese, Japanese, and Korean. Related Western-language materials are shelved in Firestone Library or other appropriate campus libraries, such as the Marquand Library of Art. The Western Americana collection in the Department of Rare Books and Special Collections contains materials documenting Asian American communities in the American West.

The library's extensive collection of books and other materials relating to Spain and Latin America emphasize cultural, political, economic, and historical topics, with particular strengths from the 18th century to the present for Spain, Argentina, Chile, Brazil, Mexico, and Cuba. Holdings of primary sources include manuscripts and correspondence of leading Latin American writers and intellectuals such as Carlos Fuentes and Mario Vargas Llosa, and various materials on the U.S. Southwest, found in the Western Americana collection.

Among the many historic and original materials in this department is a large collection of Native American periodicals and rare books and manuscripts. The Western Americana collection includes photographs of Native Americans from the mid-19th century.

The library houses the Miriam Y. Holden Collection on the History of Women.

The Art Museum

The University Art Museum is a cultural resource for the entire University community as well as a teaching museum, operated in conjunction with the Department of Art and Archaeology. Collections range from art of the ancient world to the modern.

The museum has an important collection of African art; its Doyle Collection features objects that were used in daily life in Africa, including masks, headdresses and ceremonial garments, drums, weapons, carvings, and baskets.

Renowned for its collection of Asian art, the museum has a particular strength in Chinese art, with important holdings in bronzes, tomb figures, painting, and calligraphy.

The University Art Museum also houses a distinguished collection of pre-Columbian art, with remarkable examples of the art of the Maya, as well as Colonial and 20th-century Latin American art. (www.princetonartmuseum.org )

top | July 2007