Sunset Snowshoeing

Brian Drisdelle

Class of 2021
brian

About 

To all you prospies, parents, and plenty more, welcome! My name is Brian—I'm a double-major in Economics and Engineering Physics from a small town in northwestern CT. In my free time, I'm involved in rock climbing, Club Hockey, and writing for different publications across campus. Plus, I'm pretty heavily involved in my Greek House—something which I often tend to detail in my posts—and so I'm always happy to answer questions about the Dartmouth student life in all its different capacities!

Academic Program 

Engineering Physics and Economics

Favorite Thing Right Now 

Club Hockey Roadtrips

Hometown 

Burlington, CT

Pronouns 

He/Him/His

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Brian's D-Plan

What's a D-Plan?

    • FallOn Campus

      Favorite Class: PHYS 15 - Intro Physics, Honors

      An eye-opening physics experience filled with incredible demonstrations, intriguing apparatuses, mind-blowing lectures, and an awesome professor to tie it all together. Office hours were invaluable.

    • WinterOn Campus

      Favorite Class: WRIT 5.25 - The Art of the Interview: Primary Sources in the Age of Fake News

      The section I chose for Writing 5, the freshman writing seminar. It's helped me find a new interest in journalism, and I've traveled all around the Northeast to conduct interviews and write awesome articles.

    • SpringOn Campus

      Favorite Class: ENGS 20 - Intro to Scientific Computing

      An awesome intro to engineering class where we learn to code in C and Matlab. It assumes no prior knowledge of coding and teaches some super valuable skills for learning other programming languages.

    • SummerOff-Campus

    • FallOn Campus

      Favorite Class: ENGS 21 - Intro to Engineering

      The premise of ENGS 21 is to jump right into the field of engineering by designing a product meant to improve quality of life for a target population. Many people have even gotten patents and started businesses from their groups in this class – it's an incredible opportunity and an amazing learning experience.

    • WinterOn Campus

    • SpringToulouse, France

    • SummerOn Campus

    • FallOn-Campus

      Favorite Class: ECON 20

      A class all about data and regressions, all I've learned in statistics actually applied to a carrying out real-time research questions—a great way to learn!

    • WinterOff-Campus

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The Wonders of the River Cluster

A friend pointing to the sky
My trippee Simon ushering in the sunset
It was a fateful day in early august. My phone had already been buzzing relentlessly from GroupMe messages and Facebook notifications, so I stepped out of work to finally see what all of the hype was about. I was instantly met with a present surprise: our housing assignments had appeared in our inboxes, and I was eager to see where my freshman home would be. Judge 103. It looked like any other square on the building floorplan, a decent sized room all to myself. I quickly reached out to everybody I knew, frantically looking for future floormates and friends nearby, but I was often met with a peculiar response. Whenever I’d say “yeah, I’m in Judge, in the River Cluster,” I was often met with an “I’m sorry,” or, “better luck next year,” or, “you better bring a bike.”
A sunset on the docks
A Ledyard sunset on the Connecticut
 

So, when the time came, I finally moved into the seemingly infamous River Cluster. Rumors say that it’s actually closer to Vermont than it is to the Green, and some like to claim that we have our own zip code. I found instantly that the dorms themselves are actually very nice, but the jokes held seemed to hold some truth; nested behind Thayer and Tuck, the River (Cluster) is approximately 813 feet and 4 inches from the Green, and that’s if you cut through buildings and across the cemetery (which I don’t recommend). However, in spite of the distance and all of the jokes about our relative isolation, the River actually has some absolutely incredibly features to offer, and I couldn’t be happier to live there today. The first plus of the River is that, well, it’s right next to the actual Connecticut River. While you unfortunately can’t see it from dorm windows, it’s only a short walk away down a couple flights of stairs. The perfect spot for swimming, kayaking, canoeing, or anything involving water, the river is a boatload (haha) of fun for anyone who doesn’t mind getting wet. Further, for all of my friends in the Ledyard sub-club of the DOC, they often express jealousy about how close I am to the riverside clubhouse; oh, how the tables have turned.

An inverted climbing wall
The infamous Wavewall at the climbing gym
Also, only in the River do we have the wonderful climbing gym in the basement of the Maxwell dorm! If you’ve never tried climbing, I really recommend that you give it a shot; you have no excuse not to if you live as close as I do (right across the street). Plus, the first term membership is free for first-year students, so you can give it a try for no cost! I really hope that this post has cleared up the bad air surrounding the River, and I would say that if you’ll lucky enough, maybe you too will be able to feel the cool wind on your face while coasting on your bike down Tuck Drive; there’s no other feeling like it in the world! Good luck, and I hope to see you all next fall!

Posted 10/5/2017 at 4:45 AMAll Text Posts