selenah@princeton.edu
she/her/hers
I am an English concentrator pursuing certificates in Humanistic Studies and Music Performance.
Which roles do you currently hold in the Humanities Council?
Humanities mentor, Certificate student
Activities on campus:
Princeton University Orchestra, Christian Union Nova
What have you gained from studying the Humanities?
Studying the Humanities has helped me broaden my perspective and learn to appreciate the different viewpoints each unique individual brings to a text or topic. As Ray Bradbury puts it, “after all, isn’t that what life is all about, the ability to go around back and come up inside other people’s heads to look out at the…miracle and say: oh, so that’s how you see it!? Well, now, I must remember that.” My year in the HUM Sequence was a journey of seeing into other people’s heads and doing my best to remember the experience, all while synthesizing it with my own understanding of the world. Studying the Humanities has also shown me that words and ideas really can change the world, and it has opened my eyes to the fact that there are ideas so powerful and transformative, so ancient yet still relevant, that we take them for granted. Seeking to understand why those ideas are so pervasive (and uncovering what they still have left to teach us) is what I love most about studying the Humanities at Princeton.
