Schuh attends Princeton Symposium

Local student Henry Schuh, son of Amy Nielsen and Richard Schuh, is currently a senior at Marin Academy. In late September, Schuh attended Princeton University’s annual four-day Arts and Humanities Symposium on the school’s campus in Princeton, N.J.

For the past nine years, Princeton has selected approximately 90 outstanding seniors, nominated by 150 of the top high schools around the country, to attend. This year’s symposium centered around the theme of “Whim and Rigor: Play and Work in the Creative Process.” The selected seniors have all expenses for the program, including travel, covered by the university. Schuh had the opportunity to stay on campus and to also meet with the dean of admissions.

The goal of the symposium is to give students a taste of a Princeton education and to reinforce interest in the creative arts and humanities among some of the nation’s best students. The symposium offers students an opportunity to meet and interact with Princeton faculty and current undergraduates in specially arranged seminars, workshops and performances. Schuh attended a workshop on the practical challenges and responsibilities of responding to art as a poet, painter or performer, and a seminar considering the historical and philosophical issues raised by new technologies such as 3-D printing.

Schuh has studied the piano for 12 years, the past seven with professor Marilyn Thompson at Sonoma State University. At Marin Academy, he has been able to perform and study advanced chamber music, which he hopes to continue in college. He plans to major in electrical engineering or computer science, but hopes to balance his studies by continuing to play the piano. Schuh said that he is the third Marin Academy student who has attended the symposium (one is currently at Princeton, the other attends Stanford University).