Service before starting college
Princeton plans to send as many as 10 percent of incoming freshmen abroad to help and grow.
PRINCETON - Welcome to Princeton University! Your first assignment is to take the year off.
The university is starting a program to encourage as many as 10 percent of its incoming freshmen to take off a year after high school to perform social services around the world.
"We think this kind of service experience abroad will give them a very different perspective on their Princeton education," provost Christopher Eisengruber said.
The program, which university officials hope to have in place by the 2009-10 school year, would eventually involve as many as 100 students. Participants wouldn't pay tuition and might receive financial aid to help pay for fees, living expenses and travel. They would not receive academic credit.
Eisengruber said Princeton wanted to achieve two things: allow the university's high-achieving students to take a breather before college, and give them a chance to serve others while learning about the world.
Some Princeton students who took time off before starting college said more students could benefit from doing the same.
Sophomore Eliza MacFarlane said spending the 2005-06 school year - what would have been her freshman year - helping autistic children in a rural Irish community had left her better prepared for college and life.
"I think if everyone here spent a year focusing on someone else's needs, I think Princeton would be transformed," said MacFarlane, 21.
Ari Heistein, 20, from Teaneck, spent 2006-07 in Israel. He taught English south of Tel Aviv, then moved to a kibbutz and helped with a youth program for Ethiopian Jews in a nearby town.
"I felt I needed some time off from working so hard to get in college. I thought it was good for me, and I was giving back. It was a really good situation," Heistein said.
The university is trying to hammer out details about what kind of international programs might qualify and how much the initiative would cost. It's not known at this point how much, if anything, students might have to pay.
Sandra Bermann, a comparative literature professor who chairs a university working group examining the program, said living and working abroad would carry over into how students interpreted books and poetry in the classroom.
"When you're reading a text of poetry, it helps when you understand the cultural assumptions there," Bermann said.