Jimin Kang ’21’s excellent article about the vicissitudes of the senior thesis at Princeton — past, present, and future — reminded me of some true and some apocryphal stories that arose from my graduating class in 1971. In Kang’s examples of theses that lead to national distinction, I would add Scott Berg ’71’s work on Maxwell Perkins, editor extraordinaire to Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Thomas Wolfe, and many others. Berg’s thesis turned into a bestselling biography, the first of many that he has created to critical acclaim.
Jimin Kang ’21’s excellent article about the vicissitudes of the senior thesis at Princeton — past, present, and future — reminded me of some true and some apocryphal stories that arose from my graduating class in 1971. In Kang’s examples of theses that lead to national distinction, I would add Scott Berg ’71’s work on Maxwell Perkins, editor extraordinaire to Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Thomas Wolfe, and many others. Berg’s thesis turned into a bestselling biography, the first of many that he has created to critical acclaim.