Looking Forward Questions for You, Answers from Us What is life like in Hiroshima? Princeton today is a bustling place masked behind a beautiful, peaceful campus. If you take a closer look inside our architectural exterior, you will see lots of students cramming for tests, writing soon-due papers, and struggling with difficult problem sets. Students here find free time as a true commodity as there are just too many things to do without the time to do them. Surrounding the university campus is the town of Princeton, a suburb with lots of greenery. However, you will rarely see Princeton students far from campus as there is plenty to do on campus and not a good way of transportation. Overall, life as a student at Princeton University is extremely busy, but most still make time for the things that are important to them (i.e. friends, food, extracurriculars, etc.). What clubs and activities are prominent on the Hiroshima campus? Here at Princeton, there is an extremely diverse extracurricular scene with almost any club that you could possibly imagine from classics to movie-watching. However, I would say that most share a sentiment and pride in a few activities that form the forefront of the extracurricular scene. These activities, in my opinion, are sports (especially American football), dance groups, and music groups. Here at Princeton, we take pride in our athletic excellence within the Ivy League and there is large student support for these teams. However, for those at more novice or intermediate levels, the university offers intramural and club sports. With regards to dance groups, there are a huge variety of dance groups and styles from hip-hop to East Asian. There is a similar trend for music groups with a huge a cappella scene spanning cultures and genres. What is academic life like at Hiroshima University? At Princeton, above all extracurricular activities is the importance placed on academics. Each department varies but ultimately Princeton prides itself on its scholarly rigor and depth. As an engineering major, I can say that our prerequisite courses are very difficult for me, and I feel the pressure placed on academics every day here, especially in our math department. However, although classes here are difficult, I am of the firm belief that we are learning these subjects in great detail and that we are pushed to understand concepts fully. Furthermore, there are great opportunities to dive into our passions with a seemingly endless list of course offerings and research opportunities. Princeton offers its students a great variety of classes within required categories so no two students here take the exact same courses. Ultimately, I would say the stereotypes about Princeton’s stressful and rigorous academics mostly hold true. We Hope to Meet We hope that in the near future we may meet with you in person either here in Princeton or in Japan. If we visit you in Japan, we sincerely hope that you illuminate all of the questions we have in person. We hope to experience all of the culture and experiences that you have so that we may connect on a more personal level. Specifically, I am looking forward to trying the food in Hiroshima and seeing musical performances at the university. If you visit us at Princeton, I hope to show you around campus from an inside look from the dorms to the libraries. Moreover, I hope that you can attend a sports match, dance show, or musical performance while you are here, so you can experience what I talked about before. Also, you must try the food on Nassau Street, specifically, you’ll have to try Tacoria! Nuclear Things at Princeton Today I am happy to say that Princeton has, to an extent, learned from its past in nuclear research and has removed almost all traces of nuclear things on campus. Nuclear weapons research is no longer being conducted at Princeton University and, in fact, we have dedicated resources to finding and removing all things nuclear here. More generally, all sources of nuclear radiation of the past are mostly removed and decommissioned with the few traces left in the process of removal. Now, most Princeton students of today do not live with fear or awareness of our nuclear past as Princeton has tried to erase it. However, simply erasing the past will not atone for past mistakes, and for that, we, the Princetonians of today, offer our most sincere apologies for this institution's actions. Furthermore, we hope to rebuild the relationship between our two universities and bridge the intercontinental, intergenerational gap between us.
