Parting words

“If alumni are staying connected, they can become nostalgic, and nostalgia keeps them coming back and donating. But in the process, all the grit, all the in-between stuff — the weird, messy edges that made my Princeton mine and yours, yours — nostalgia can end up buffing those out. Princeton colored each of us our own shade, subtle and distinct, but mixed together, we somehow form orange and black. That would have been a better metaphor if I had gotten into Brown.” — Class Day speaker DAN ABROMOWITZ ’13

PHOTO: DAVID KELLY CROW/OFFICE OF COMMUNICATIONS

“Getting over these feelings of inadequacy helped me just chill out. I stopped stressing every time I mistook the name of a country for the name of an indie rock band or worrying if I needed to prepare for a presentation by watching a YouTube video titled ‘How to Pronounce Goethe.’ Gerta? Gothee? I don’t know. But I do know I stopped worrying about measuring up to all my peers. I stopped trying to read all (or any) USG emails; I stopped worrying about wearing shoes in the dining hall; I stopped ­pretending to read on the elliptical. You’re not fooling anyone.” — Class Day speaker CATHERINE COHEN ’13

PHOTO: BEVERLY SCHAEFER

“Once, we entered these very gates as sheep, but now we will emerge from these same gates as men and women unafraid of hungry wolves and fierce storms: We will emerge as Tigers of Princeton.” — Salutatorian AMELIA BENSCH-SCHAUS ’13, translated from Latin

PHOTO: BEVERLY SCHAEFER

“The facts you barely memorized for that final or the not-so-coherent paper you wrote the night before Dean’s Date probably won’t play a role in your future endeavors, but ­perhaps all our experiences here will collectively help us in some inchoate way.” — Valedictorian AMAN SINHA ’13