Hello, Eda here: full-time learner, part-time writer, and pretty much a happy amateur at everything else. My hobbies include reading, discovering new movies, and looking at the pictures of my cat. On campus, you can find me peer supporting for the Mental Health Union and SAPA, writing for Spare Rib, doing research in psychology, or listening to Turkish & English alt-rock. Feel free to ask me about taking a gap year, transitioning to a new cultural space, or college in general!
This class discusses the concepts of sex and gender in the broader context of issues related to race, class, national identity, and more. I loved this class because it helped me better understand how systemic inequality affects individual lives and made me think about ways to change it. Professor A'Ness is such an inspiring prof!
In this first-year writing seminar, we discussed how avant-garde movements from futurism to punk rock have constituted a rebellion against the status quo. I loved all the readings for this class and Professor McCann inspired me to take more courses in the English department!
In this course, we learned all the basics of fiction: character, plot, setting, etc. My favorite parts of the course were receiving feedback from other students, reading my peers' work, and having fiction readings as assigned course work! I also appreciated all the guest speakers we had, who were experienced writers in their respective genres.
As an aspiring clinical psychologist, this course has been one of the best classes I have taken at Dartmouth so far. The class focused on the etiology, diagnosis, characteristics and treatment of various mental disorders. Professor Hudenko has been one of the greatest lectures I had the pleasure of meeting. As a clinical psychologist himself, he had extensive knowledge in not only the theory, but also the practice of clinical psychology. He also succeeded in making a lecture-based class feel interactive and dynamic.
We covered the complex neural and biological mechanisms of multiple mental health disorders ranging from common conditions like anxiety to more complicated illnesses such as schizophrenia. In addition to reading about the cutting-edge research in this area, we also read memoirs and watched documentaries about the mental illnesses to focus on how these conditions are affecting people in real life. Professor Funnell is one of the best profs I had!
As an aspiring clinical psychologist, this has been one of my favorite classes at Dartmouth. We learned about different therapy methods, how and when to use them, their advantages, and shortcomings. The class was incredibly engaging with Professor Hudenko's frequent demonstrations of methods, therapy videos, and guest speakers. I would recommend this class to every psychology major.
I worked at Dimock Health Center as part of my community health internship. I was part of a team of summer interns who were college students like myself. We worked as patient advocates that helped people reach out to resources regarding housing, food, utilities, etc. Most of our work involved calling patients, helping them fill out forms, and researching resources. I learned so much about community health resources and how to communicate with a diverse set of patients. It was an invaluable experience!
I took classes in the School of English and Drama at Queen Mary University of London. My favorite class of the term was called London Performance Now, which involved going to different performance events in London and discussing them in class. It was the perfect opportunity to explore the cultural landscape of London.
As the title of the course suggests, this class was about food: its history, economics, and cultural practices. I learned a lot through this course thanks to guest speakers, thought-provoking readings, and engaging assignments. My favorite assignment in this course was writing about a family recipe; I learned so much about my family's history as well as the cultural conflicts in my home country. Overall, it was among the best classes I have taken at Dartmouth. Plus, we even got to eat delicious food cooked by our classmates!
As I mentioned before, last weekend, I visited the Marina Abramović Institute Takeover at Southbank Arts Center for one of my classes: London Performance Now. Queen Mary University of London provided us with tickets to the performance, which otherwise would have been too expensive for a student worker like me. The event, according to my lecturer, was one of the hottest events of the season, and for a good reason. Abramovic is among the most popular and controversial performance artists in contemporary history. Even though she was not performing herself for some of the event dates, the performance art exhibition attracted widespread attention, as evident by the huge queue of people waiting at the gates of Queen Elizabeth Hall at Southbank Center. Even though it was much more sanitized and "tame" than most performance art exhibitions are, it was still among the most thought-provoking and interesting performances I have seen. This week, I also watched The Flea by Yard Theater, a local theater built inside an old warehouse, for my London Performance Now class. The play was a historical drama about the Cleveland Street Scandal in Victorian England. I sat next to an elderly queer couple, and it was wonderful to hear their views on the show!
I do not have classes on Mondays and Tuesdays, so I usually set off on my solo excursions to local, independent bookstores. Last Tuesday, I visited Word on Water, which is, as the name suggests, a bookstore on a boat on the Regent's Canal. It was possibly the most unique bookstore I have been to. Not only that but despite the constrictions of the space, they had a good range of books to choose from. I also visited Housmans, a radical bookseller near the British Library. I have found many books hard to find in other bookstores and cool items, but this one certainly takes the first place. They are selling the original copies of Spare Rib, a feminist magazine in the UK. I have sent the pictures of the copies to my friends in Spare Rib Dartmouth, a feminist zine we publish online.
Spare Rib magazine collection at Housmans.
One of the employer's picks of the month at Housmans was How to Write an Autobiographical Novel by Alexander Chee, the English & creative writing professor at Dartmouth who is working as the faculty director for our program and is currently with us in London.
Professor Chee's book as a staff pick at Housmans!
Last but not least, on Saturday, we had a trip to Bath as the London English study abroad cohort. We had a walking tour of the city to see many of its landmarks, including the Abbey, the Royal Crescent, and small, historical sites with literary importance. We also visited the Jane Austen Center, where we could dress up in 18th-century clothing, write letters with a quill, and learn more about Austen's life. Afterwards, we had free time to discover Bath. The highlight of the trip for me was visiting Persephone Books, which prints rare and out-of-print female authors' books.
Persephone Books!
Thank you for reading about my favorite week in London so far. Stay tuned for more adventures!
At Dartmouth, there is an undergraduate requirement for language; after all, it is the liberal arts! Fulfilling this requirement looks different for various people and I will focus on my experience.
I have written about being a student worker plenty of times in the past, but I have yet to talk about one of my favorite jobs ever: ticket selling at the Hopkins Center for the Arts.
As I approach the halfway mark of my Dartmouth journey this spring, I find myself reflecting on the significance of distributive and world culture requirements in shaping my academic experience.
This is part two of me "nerding out" about my honors thesis! If you want to learn more about independent projects, theses, or the humanities at Dartmouth, check it out!
