The McKinsey Scale

May 5, 2017

First-Year Reflections

The Nass’s Annual Collection of First-Year Reflections

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A Prayer in Passing

“‘Would you like a prayer?'”

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Man and Machine

An interview with Ian Chang, on connecting the computer to the organic body in performing and composing music

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American Fairy

“Somehow I would atomize the egotism and diva and brutishness that mediated Ty’s interface and reveal genuine realized human soul.”

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Women in Math

“The issue, then, is that in the minds of female students, math becomes a game for ‘smart people’—and over time, fewer and fewer girls retain the confidence to overcome that perception.”

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Uni-versity

“‘I think I terrify a lot of people,’ Akiva tells me, only half-kidding as he balances his unicycle in the middle of the Rocky Classroom…”

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Streicker Bridge

“Granny began losing her memory. Last spring, she mailed me a ripped-out page of an English course catalogue for Middlebury College. I couldn’t tell if she had forgotten that I go to Princeton.”

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Milk cum laude

“10 o’clock peek-a-boo
12 o’clock Looney Tune”

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Verbatim

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Overheard in Terrace

Sophomore guy: No, no, I’m not steampunk, I’m just bouncing off of steampunk.

Overheard at Bank Street

Cap dude: Yeah, two people in my fraternity have lost their fingers.

Overheard in Georgetown

Young woman: What’re you gonna get at AllSaints?
Young man: A blowjob.

Overheard in Pyne

Ivy senior sadboi, at 1 a.m. after Sunday Funday: That’s how I feel about sadness—I’m really addicted to it but I don’t like it.

Overheard at a wedding

Twenty-something female: And I’m like, I do not need to see your cervix. We’re not that close.

Overheard in Wilf

Nass EIC: This hummus is godly.
Observant Jew: The Nass is not the Messiah.

Overheard on party bus

Low-key humanitarian, high-key drunk: I went on one of those community service trips to Jamaica in college, but our driver hit a house, so we ended up rebuilding that one instead.

Overheard in an elevator

Drunk girl in sequins: Only cool people allowed. Only people who like Lean Cuisine.

Overheard in Club Monaco

Sophomore Theta with a fiber stomachache: I just love legumes, but I literally couldn’t even go to Olives anymore if I stopped eating them. I only eat legumes there.

Overheard in Rocky

Large bearded man: You can’t be nervous in this world with an 18-inch cock.

Overheard in Butler

Sophomore progressive: No one at Princeton is a Marxist.
Sophomore progressive 2: What about [redacted]? He suffers so much.

Overheard on Ivy patio

Senior boy, on recent alum: Her entire life is a meta-commentary on the ills of humanity.

Overheard in CWR201

Edmund White, on teaching at Brown: I mean, well... most of the students were Euro trash.

Overheard in Ivy

Sophomore Pi Phi: What does WASP stand for? White, average-sized person?

Overheard in Patton

Former Nass EIC: Journalism is imploding.

Overheard in Frist

Sophomore Pi Phi: I only have one Google alert, and it’s for Mindy Kaling.

Overheard at the Woody Woo fountain

Tall man: I guess cold brew is too much for me.

Overheard outside Frist

Orange Key guide: Princeton Preview is a great chance to sleep with a student.