Hello there! My name is Shuyi and I'm a '23, which means it's my senior year here at Dartmouth! Follow me for my last year at Dartmouth as I reflect upon my college experience. At Dartmouth, I enjoy playing squash, eating at late night, and of course, blogging. You can ask me about studying social sciences, coming to Dartmouth as an international student, and anything else really. I hope you enjoy the blog!
I actually wasn't planning on taking this class but it eventually became my favorite class. The professor was very funny and created a relaxed classroom environment where I enjoyed looking at diversity in different contexts, such as college admissions and group dynamics.
This class was a perfect mix of philosophy, classical studies, and writing. We were able to reflect on societal views, our own ideas of optimism and pessimism, and how we can lead more fulfilling and compassionate lives.
My first experience with computer science was my Freshman winter, and I quickly became interested in the subject. I followed up CS1 with CS10 in the Spring, which I found just as cool. I love how you can solve problems by applying logic and math with computer science, and I look forward to diving deeper into the major!
Econ 21 is required for all Econ majors, and I loved my experience with Professor Gustman. He made the material super easy to digest and allowed me to take exams in my timezone, which I thought was really nice.
It was really interesting to study public speaking in an asynchronous environment, and I came away with a deeper understanding of not only public speaking but speech writing. I wrote a separate blog post about the class, so check it out!
Since English was one of my favorite classes in high school, I wanted to take another writing course at Dartmouth. This was a great choice, as it was a perfect mix of lecture and discussion. I loved reading and learning about several American dramas, and even discussing modern topics such as Trump's rhetoric!
SummerShanghai
I took my Sophomore Summer off, which many international students do, and got involved with the Tuck School of Business through the Bridge and Paganucci programs! You can read more about my summer experiences in my blogs!
This was my first class from the QSS department, which was long overdue considering that I'm a QSS major! I really enjoyed picking up some coding skills and tackling problems like transitional justice with quantitative approaches.
I took Econ 25 in the Fall, and Econ 35 was the next course in the game theory sequence! It was really fun to apply game theory to cool concepts like sports, Covid-19, and auctions.
This was my first time taking a music class even though I have been involved with music my entire life, whether that was playing the piano or learning how to make beats. I loved this class because I not only learned more about music, but more about Native culture as well!
SummerNew York
I took my junior summer off to pursue a management consulting internship in New York. I had a wonderful experience!
I absolutely loved this class! Theatre was one of my favorite classes in middle school, and so it was great to reconnect with theatre again in college. The professor was amazingly kind and passionate, and the final project was a really fun group performance!
This was a small class of around 15 people, which allowed us to have intimate discussions of readings and theatre. I loved hearing from my classmates, as we used our personal experiences to guide us in our understanding of materials. My final project was a protest on campus, which also really fun and refreshing take on performance!
I have really enjoyed my courseload this winter, as I'm taking classes from the Theatre department, Music department, and Quantitative Social Science (QSS) department. While I could dedicate an entire blog post to each of these classes, I thought I would share about my QSS Major Project. This class is required for all majors (which I am!), and is meant to be a culminating experience for our academic experience. Going into this class, I wasn't sure what to expect. Now that I'm almost done with the term, however, I couldn't have enjoyed this class more!
For the Major Project, every student is expected to produce a research paper on a topic of their choice. I love the freedom given for us to choose our topic, as it allows each student to dive into something their interested in. In my class, I've seen papers about sports, sex, finance, and more! It's really cool to see what everyone is interested in, and to learn about these various areas of study. Personally, I chose the topic of remote work and local economies. As someone who is about to enter the workforce after graduation, I'm really interested in the implications of emerging remote work models! I found some great data from the U.S. Census Bureau on remote work and local economies, and so I decided to run with this topic for the term.
We not only get a lot of freedom in choosing our topic, but the project itself is very student-led. While the professor is there to help solve problems and guide students through the process, we are expected to gather the data, create regression models, and write the paper by ourselves. While I've struggled with some aspects of the paper (mainly coding), it's been refreshing to be given so much independence. Although I don't have results yet, I'm excited to see what I find! For now, enjoy the graph above of how different states measure with remote work. Can you guess which area has the highest measure of remote workers? (It's D.C.!)
While my QSS Major Project class has been wonderful, I'm not even sure if it's my favorite class. In my theatre class, we are learning about how theatre can shape Latin American culture in the context of colonialism. It's a small class, and I've enjoyed intimate discussions with my classmates. In my music class, we are listening to different types of music from across different genres and time periods. I've really enjoyed studying for our listening tests, where the professor plays a song and we answer with the name of the musical piece! Overall, through my courseload this term, I get to explore all the different sides of myself and practice different skills, ranging from artistic, analytical, to theoretical!
What kind of classes do you take in a subject-based Foreign Study Program? Here's a rundown of my classes in the Music FSP in London to give you an idea of what academic life is like in the program!
After returning from an enriching study abroad program, I'm diving into a bustling spring semester here at Dartmouth. Here are my four courses I'm taking this term!
Dartmouth's liberal arts curriculum pushes students to explore new departments and draw connections between seemingly disparate disciplines. Come explore my Economics, Physics, and Asian, Societies, Cultures, and Languages classes!
