Precept
At some point during your first few precepts, you might start worrying that everyone here is really smart. After all, everyone speaks in such euphonic and well-articulated sentences. A word of advice will save you a few weeks of angst: it's called B.S. People here are good at it, and you'll probably pick up the lingo in no time. Princeton students have an almost obsessive fear of failure, which means they try to conceal their own questions and confusions with tangential tidbits from last semester. Don't worry -- if you're feeling lost in precept, the odds are everyone else is lost, too (even the guy who's expounding so eloquently on anti-establishment neo-feminist literary theory . . . in Math 113). The truly smartest people are the ones who aren't afraid to look stupid in precept. And you will soon discover that everyone -- even the preceptor -- loves the person who isn't afraid to ask the stupid question.
Precept is something you grow accustomed to -- keep an open mind, and respond if you feel like it. Don't feel the need to show off. Preceptors understand that sometimes readings are difficult to comprehend, and papers aren't easy to write. In general, the more you've listened in lecture and paid attention to the reading, the more you'll have to say.
