I want to applaud Princeton’s efforts to engage and to help assimilate low-income students, as I personally endured all of the challenges described in “Negotiating College Life” (On the Campus, March 1). In high school, I helped feed my family with the leftover chicken from my part-time job at KFC, and I couldn’t even afford a suit upon graduation from Princeton. To save money, I never joined an eating club, and I worked several part-time jobs while I was a student. At Princeton, people like me learn to endure four years of having overprivileged children looking down their noses at you.
Upon graduation, Career Services offered that I should “try calling some alumni and just be patient.” That led to my being a roofer for three years. A random encounter with a high school classmate helped me to land my first engineering job, and from there I’ve worked my way up to bigger things.
The sticking point for me with this article is that it seems to want to exclude white people. Princeton should take care to include all low-income students. It should be clear that there are in fact underprivileged students of all races and of all heritages and who are not necessarily first-generation who can benefit from the University’s guidance services. I give full credit to Princeton for attempting to show improvement in these areas. I hope that my feedback on past surveys has contributed to the University’s decision to address these issues and will help it become the place it strives to be.