Swimming for Credit

Hey Princeton! Are you drowning in work? Well, at least you’re not actually getting wet—which is not something I can say for everyone. Yesterday, my roommate and 12 other freshmen in FRS 186, Signals, Yardsticks, and Tipping Points of Global Warming and Ocean Environments (this is the seminar with the trip to Bermuda over spring break), took a quiz … underwater. Whattt??Instead of meeting in Guyot Hall, students filed in to the Dillon Gym pool in their bathing suits where their task was to identify different kinds of fish, such as the queen angelfish and the banded butterflyfish, among others. Thirty-one laminated cards, each of which displayed a picture of a fish, were placed in six-and-a-half-feet deep water. Students swam down to the pictures, quickly scribbled down the fishes’ names and corresponding slide numbers on a whiteboard, and then transferred their final answers to the answer sheet.After identifying the first 15 fish in one pool, the students ran (or walked—no running by the pool?) to the second pool with the last set of pictures. Done at last, they removed their goggles with triumphant victory and headed to lunch. Bermuda, here they come?