#ThrowbackThursday: Thesis Time

For Princeton seniors beginning the final sprint to their thesis deadlines, this desktop scene from 1940 may look somewhat familiar (with a different keyboard, of course, and some changes to the peripheral refuse). As student columnist Jill Smolowe ’77 once wrote in PAW, the thesis “starts as a distant and incomprehensible word your freshman year, creeping up silently through the middle-class years, only to pounce with a fierce vengeance in the autumn of your senior year.” By the time the second semester arrives, it can seem all-consuming: “Your well-being and your thesis become synonymous.” Of course, it’s not all work and no play — or at least it wasn’t for another student columnist, Richard Kluger ’56, who explained the secret to a strong senior year: “[G]ive the impression of feverish, utterly devoted academic activity probing into realms never before trammeled by white bucks while, at the same time, maintaining a well-rounded schedule for goodfellowship and gaiety.” And when the thesis is complete, it’s celebration time. Woodrow Wilson School majors hold the most visible party, making a cathartic plunge into the fountain outside Robertson Hall. David Baumgarten ’06 covered the 2005 event for a PAW column and interviewed then-senior Jay Saxon ’05, whose words will undoubtedly sound promising to today’s thesis-writing cohort: “When I wake up tomorrow, I’m going to have nothing to do except enjoy Princeton and enjoy my friends and enjoy the sun. It’s going to be amazing.”