Last Weeks of Sophomore Spring! | Princeton Admission

May 10, 2026

By Raquel Rodriguez ’28

I’ve wrapped up my finals, my inbox is filled with senior sales, and I am packing up my stuff for summer storage. Sophomore year is essentially over 🙁 With summer break just a few days away, I know that I will miss Princeton and all my friends, so I’m writing this blog to reminisce on the spring semester. Mostly, I will focus on the month of April because there were lots of exciting activities that I participated in 😀

One of the highlights of April was visiting the Jersey shore for the first time ever with the Princeton Conservation Society. We volunteered at a beach cleanup and logged all the different pieces of trash we found. It was fascinating to see the impact of human activity on the environment, especially the abundance of horseshoe crab molts laying around the sand dunes.

Over the past semester, I’ve worked with the Office of Sustainability to improve outdoor lighting and reduce light pollution on campus. As part of this project, I attended a light design conference in NYC with the other student researcher, Bonnie, to pitch our work with lighting designers. It was a valuable experience to connect with professionals in the field and present our ideas.

A significant milestone for me was celebrating Declaration Day! Now, I am an official Geosciences major! Dec Day has become my favorite Princeton tradition because it is such an amazing way to bond with all my classmates: taking photos with different banners, eating free food from the food trucks, and wearing our matching 2028 sweatshirts. It’s a wonderful day filled with camaraderie and celebration.

The club basketball team traveled to Brown University for the annual Ivy League Women’s Club Basketball Tournament. Over two days, we played four games against Brown, Harvard, Dartmouth, and Cornell. Despite the competition, we had a great time in Rhode Island and bonded as a team through the experience.

Campus Rec hosted its annual campus-wide Dodgeball Tournament where residential colleges and eating clubs could play against each other. In smaller brackets, clubs and any other groups could join in on the fun! There were free shirts, pizza, and smoothies all evening, as the tournament went on from 6 PM to 2 AM. It was a lively and enjoyable event that brought the community together.

This excursion has no relation to Princeton, but I want to include it to show how accessible Philadelphia is to Princeton! I took an Amtrak train to visit my friend at UPenn, and it was so easy to get there. The train made a stop at Princeton Junction (the closest public transit hub) and it only took me forty minutes to get to Philly. My friend and I had a fun time trying different food spots around UPenn.

To celebrate the end of classes, the Undergraduate Student Government got Fetty Wap to headline the Spring 2026 Lawnparties! The crowd was larger than I’ve ever seen at Lawnparties, and it was a beautiful day out. It was a memorable event that brought the entire campus together in celebration.

Disclaimer: Let it be known that I was still on the academic grind, but I was just particularly social in April. Anyhow, I make this whole blog to say that college is a time for new experiences and memories beyond academics and studying. To the readers, I hope you all have an amazing summer filled with lots of fun! I’ll be back in the fall!

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