Published on Princeton Alumni Weekly (https://paw.princeton.edu)


#ThrowbackThursday: Thesis Time

By Princeton Alumni Weekly
Published in the March 18, 2015 Issue

04261940

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.”

Source URL:https://paw.princeton.edu/article/throwbackthursday-thesis-time