 A history major , Sotomayor received almost all A 's in her final two years of college . Sotomayor wrote her senior thesis at Princeton on Luis Muñoz Marín , the first democratically elected governor of Puerto Rico , and on the territory 's struggles for economic and political self @-@ determination . The 178 @-@ page work , " La Historia <unk> de Puerto Rico : The Impact of the Life of Luis Muñoz Marin on the Political and Economic History of Puerto Rico , 1930 – 1975 " , won honorable mention for the Latin American Studies Thesis Prize . As a senior , Sotomayor won the Pyne Prize , the top award for undergraduates , which reflected both strong grades and extracurricular activities . In 1976 , she was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and awarded an A.B. from Princeton , graduating summa cum laude . She was influenced by the then @-@ fashionable critical race theory , which would be reflected in her later speeches and writings . 
