John Nash arrives at Princeton University as a new graduate student. He is a recipient of the prestigious Carnegie Prize for mathematics. Though he was promised a single room, his roommate Charles, a literature student, greets him as he moves in and soon becomes his best friend. Nash also meets a group of other promising math and science graduate students, Martin Hansen, Sol, Ainsley, and Bender, with whom he strikes up an awkward friendship. Nash admits to Charles that he is better with numbers than people, which comes as no surprise to them after watching his largely unsuccessful attempts at conversation with the women at the local bar.