Season 3: Episode 13 Transcript
Academic Lessons from the First Year of College
Lee Coffin:
pre-matriculationfirst-yearFrom Hanover, New Hampshire, I'm Lee Coffin, Dartmouth Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid, and this is the Admissions Beat.
Hello, seniors. You are now two weeks away from May 1st. The national candidate's reply date creeps closer by the minutes and for many of you, you're still thinking about where you see yourself enrolling. And this episode from a student perspective picks up where we left off last week where we had faculty members talking about majors and minors in the undergraduate experience from their perspective leading a classroom. And this week, I bring three first year students into the conversation to help you imagine what your first year might be like. What happens after May 1st? How do you go from your enrollment decision through the pre matriculation experience of the summer, get ready for fall and then start taking classes and meet new classmates and experience college?
One of the things I often say to students as I'm talking about college is Utopia College has not been founded yet. So you go through your search looking for the perfect place, which does not exist. Colleges are human organizations with lots of moving parts and you're going to experience people and ideas, and places, and the need to do your own laundry, and cafeteria food, and lots of other things that you might not be thinking about today, but will land on your doorstep not that many months from now. So when we come back, we'll meet our three undergrads and have a conversation drawn from their wisdom as college freshman. We'll be right back.
(Music)
So we're joined today by three members of Dartmouth's class of 2026. And as always, while they're Dartmouth students, we are not talking about Dartmouth. We are giving you advice from the Dartmouth point of view that hopefully you can plug into whatever options you have or wherever you might be headed in September. So we're going to say hi to Lexie Gauthier who is from Ronan, Montana. Hi, Lexie.
Lexie Gauthier:
Hi. Thanks for having me on.
Lee Coffin:
You're welcome. Tell us a little bit about your background. So you're from Montana and you went to Ronan High School. Tell us just a little bit about your background there and what your college search was like a year ago.
Lexie Gauthier:
Yeah, so looking back a year ago, I had really no idea what I wanted to do. I applied to Dartmouth early decision for three reasons. One, because Dartmouth was a small school, because it was in a small town and because it had the Native American program that I wanted to be a part of. So for those three reasons, I was like, okay, let's go all in for Dartmouth.
I didn't really know much about the school before applying, so it was kind of like a shot in the dark, but I would definitely say that it was a good choice for me to make. Growing up in a really small town, I just wanted to make that transition to college be a little bit more smooth in Dartmouth. Being such a small school in rural New Hampshire gave me the best of both worlds. It gave me going to the East Coast and also going to a small school.
Lee Coffin:
Great, thank you. Roman Jimenez is a student from Los Angeles. Hi, Roman.
Roman Jimenez:
Hi. Thank you for having me.
Lee Coffin:
You're welcome. So you are a graduate of Le Lycée Français de Los Angeles. I studied Italian, so I might have just Italianized your French high school.
Roman Jimenez:
No. You're completely okay.
Lee Coffin:
There you go. I'm multilingual. So tell us a little bit about your journey from LA to Hanover.
Roman Jimenez:
Yeah. I mean, obviously coming from such an urban city, Dartmouth at first glance didn't seem like it would be something that would appeal to me, but as we'll speak about later on, that completely changed and I'm actually incredibly happy to have chosen Dartmouth. But amongst other things, I think for me as a government major, Dartmouth's curriculum as well as having the option to just engage in several interdisciplinary liberal arts curriculums here at the college is what gravitated me here. And that was something I was quite adamant about in high school when I was looking for in a college. I wanted to have a well-rounded education.
Lee Coffin:
Good. Our third guest is Andrew Wilson from Lincoln, New Hampshire. So we have LA, Montana, and someone much more close. Someone closer to campus. Hi, Andrew.
Andrew Wilson:
Hi. Thanks for having me on.
Lee Coffin:
You're welcome. And so tell us a little bit about... So you attended Linwood Public School in Lincoln, New Hampshire, which is a teeny, tiny high school.
Andrew Wilson:
Yep. I believe we're the smallest public school in the state of New Hampshire. Little bragging rights right there.
Lee Coffin:
How many classmates did you have?
Andrew Wilson:
My class was one of the smaller ones. I think we graduated with 18.
Lee Coffin:
Wow. Lexie, were you smaller than that or bigger?
Lexie Gauthier:
I was 66, but a lot of the rural towns around are about the same.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah, the regional. Okay. I'm guessing Lycee was also tiny?
Roman Jimenez:
Yes. I mean, my graduating class I believe had 32 students.
Lee Coffin:
Oh, boy. So all three of you came to college from relatively small high schools. Andrew, so you tell us a little bit more about what you're studying and what your interests are.
Andrew Wilson:
Yeah. So I'm planning on studying engineering. In my free time, I like to ski and then I enjoy working at the railroad in my town on the summers. I'm especially interested in engineering sort of metals. I've always liked to weld. Since coming to Dartmouth I've discovered the machine shop, so that keeps me pretty busy.
Lee Coffin:
Did you say you work on the railroad?
Andrew Wilson:
Yeah. The Hobo and Winnipesaukee Scenic railroads run in my town. I've been working there since I was 14. I love it there.
Lee Coffin:
What do you do?
Andrew Wilson:
Pretty much general maintenance. We have a pretty small crew that maintains the locomotives rail equipment and the track, and they've all been really great to me. It's actually what I wrote my admissions essay about. So this 14-year-old kid gets to work with guys who've been doing it for 45, 50 years. It's really something pretty special.
Lee Coffin:
That's cool. Yeah, that is cool. I think that's a first that I've uncovered that as an extracurricular. So mid-April, Dartmouth is on a quarter system. So for our listeners, we've gone through the fall term, the winter term, and now we're at the beginning of the spring term. So using Dartmouth just as an example, usually three courses per term. So you've had each around nine courses to date, maybe eight, maybe 10, but nine-ish.
For people in high school who were still thinking college is an idea, not a reality just yet, what was that experience like? You were high achievers in high school. You come to a college and you're surrounded by other high achievers which is always one of those moments of adjustment and you have to translate your academic success in high school to this college space.
Was that easy? Was it challenging? Were you surprised by it? Particularly in September and October, set some expectations for our friends in high school about what the launch of your college academic experience is like?
Lexie Gauthier:
I was very motivated through high school. I did a lot of clubs. I would leave my house at seven in the morning and get back at 9:00 in the evening. That was an adjustment coming here to Dartmouth where I had my days a little bit more open than I'd ever had them in the last four years. So managing my classes and being in that room with... There's a lot of people that are at that same academic level as me or beyond. It was humbling in a way, but also it made me want to rise to that expectation.
I had to also have grace with myself because being a high achieving student in high school, I hadn't really experienced those lows of getting a 50% on an exam. So I took an intro linguistics course and I was basically halfway through the term saying to myself, "There's no way I can do this." And by the end of the term, I was doing really well in the class and enjoying it. It actually changed my path to want to pursue linguistics more.
So it was having that grace with myself that, "Okay. Yeah, I can totally bomb a test, but you can come back from that and there's people that are willing to rally behind you and help you get through that."
Lee Coffin:
And Lexie, when you characterize it as you bombed the test, what happened? What was different about a college class versus a high school class that you had to back up a step and say, "Ooh, I need to recalibrate?"
Lexie Gauthier:
In high school I realized that my study methods weren't very much study methods. They were more like pay attention in class, do the homework, and then the test should come fairly easy because you're going over this content. It's a lot slower pace. And then I get to Dartmouth where 10-week terms go by so fast. You are learning just an abundance of information every time you have a class period. So for me it was more leaving the test and not feeling like I did well.
Also realizing that okay, I can't just come to class, show up and have that be the end of it. I have to dive into it deeper. So for me, bombing with a test was more not feeling comfortable with the material that I was working with.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah. Andrew and Roman, does that sound familiar?
Andrew Wilson:
Yeah. I guess I can speak to that. Just like Lexie said, I did, probably the biggest adjustment between high school and college is time. I mean, granted in high school, I don't know, you might have up to seven classes whereas here you only have three, or at least at Dartmouth, but it's in a 10-week term. Also, your day isn't nearly as structured. You don't have anyone telling where you where have to be at what time.
The other difference I'd say is in high school you can get by trying to do everything. May or may not, but you can do sports, you can do a lot of the clubs. Here, don't even try to do everything. It's very impossible. My advice would be try to pick a few to focus on, and it just really just takes time to find the balance between academics and clubs and sleep and social and all of that.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah. That balance is a good piece of advice as is time. You've both referenced that. As you come out of a high school environment where in my public high school there were seven periods, there was a bell that rang between the periods and you went from period one to period two to period three to lunch, to period five. And you didn't have this freedom to say, "I've got an 8:00 class and an 11:00 class, and maybe a 3:00 PM class." What are you doing in between? And teaching yourself how to use those in between times effectively are really important. Roman, how about you? What was your fall like?
Roman Jimenez:
Yeah, absolutely. I think going back onto that note about time management, I think that was incredibly important. But also having time to implement into your schedule, just using the general resources of the college, I found was extremely helpful. I think when you are dealing with that type of material, specifically for me, scholarly articles in the government department, I found that a lot of the times that required me to actually go into the library and spend time with the librarians and actually see that material in its physical form and also deal with that in a very real way.
Whereas in high school, I felt like it was very easy to how back on that note of getting by whether that's doing the work online or just being used to that. And I think that's important to mention as well. I mean, we were, obviously, during the COVID era of schooling. So I think I became very accustomed to doing all of my research purely online. And so when I got to college, I think having to step into the realization that we're back into the regular type of learning environment, you really can go into any sort of... Whether that's a facility or a resource or going and seeing a teacher during office hours, that's a very physical way of learning that I felt was absolutely necessary in order for me to progress.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah. So you just mentioned office hours, which I think for a lot of students is a new concept. So describe office hours. When you get the syllabus, which is the course schedule from your professor, and there are office hours, what is that?
Roman Jimenez:
Yeah. So speaking obviously specifically to Dartmouth, that is hours that are set aside outside of class time for you to meet with the professor at a scheduled time of convenience. And those are extremely resourceful. You get to speak one-on-one with your professor and talk about quite literally anything that you want to talk about regarding the course or even just personal matters that are on your mind and then how it might affect your academic success at Dartmouth.
But in general, I mean, I'm sure other colleges have very similar methods of being able to reach out to a professor, and I think I would tell students to definitely take advantage of that.
Lee Coffin:
Now office hours is a universal concept. That is the norm in most undergraduate environments where the faculty will have every Tuesday at 3:00 or every Tuesday and Thursday at 3:00 and just pop in. I remember in my first year, I learned to do it. It wasn't the norm in my high school, but the professor kept saying, "Come see me if you have questions." And like Lexie, I had an early exam result that was not one that I was accustomed to. I went to see the professor and I said, "Can you look at this with me and just kind of review it so that I can shift the way I'm studying?" It was really valuable.
The other thing I'm wondering as we talk about the shift from high school to college is something I think Andrew mentioned. You have maybe seven courses at the time when you're a senior and in college you might have three, four, maybe five, but usually four. I know when I used to work at Tufts University and I was a first-year advisor and some of my students would say, "Four courses, I can do this in my sleep." I'd say, "They move more quickly. Don't get out over your skis and think just because four is less than seven, it's easier."
Andrew Wilson:
Yeah. I agree. I mean in high school if you had seven courses, maybe not all of them would've homework every night. Maybe you'd be able to knock out the homework in an hour. I remember during orientation week they told us the rule of thumb here is for every hour in class you plan to spend, three on doing homework, but which I found depending on the class sometimes it's not quite three. Sometimes it could even be more than three, but definitely a lot.
Usually, at least you'll spend the amount of time you spend in class or the amount of time you spend out of class will be at least the same amount of time you would spend in class.
Lee Coffin:
Where do you do the studying?
Andrew Wilson:
Yeah. I'd say I do a lot of my studying in the library. At first, I was studying in my dorm. I got myself to come out of the shell and look for a few different places. I found different classes. I need different levels of focus to study for. So some classes I'll need to shut myself in. We call it the stacks. It's a silent area at the library here. Other ones I can do with my friends being a little noisy in the background. Sometimes I'll do it in my dorm if I'm sleepy or what have you. It really depends and it's good to change it up every now and then.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah. Lexie, where do you study?
Lexie Gauthier:
Yeah. I also study wherever it fits the vibe. I took a reading Jane Austen class last term, and I only studied in the old libraries here on campus because it emulated that Victorian reading that I was doing. But when it honestly depends. I really do like being in my room. I'm a homebody, so I enjoy my space. Now that it's warm outside, I can sit outside and do the studying and go on the green and that kind of stuff. I found it when I'm sitting outside, I'm the most productive because just the sun and everything really helps.
Lee Coffin:
And that's counterintuitive. I would guess if you were sitting on a green or a quad and they're frisbees and dogs and other happiness, it would be hard to stay focused. But you like that?
Lexie Gauthier:
I like that too because I also grew up in a house with... I have five older siblings and I'm the youngest. It was always chaos and everybody always had their friends over. So for me it was like, "Okay, I'm doing this really serious work. I'm going to go try to find the most chaotic spot ever." But there have been times where I'm like, "Okay. There's no way I can have any other distractions." And usually my room is the best place for that.
Lee Coffin:
So let's start with the classes themselves, because Lexie mentioned linguistics. Go back to September. Let's start with Roman. What three courses did you take in your first year, first term?
Roman Jimenez:
Yeah. So in my first term I took international politics, which was government five. I took American political behavior, which was government 83, I believe. And then I also took my writing class, which was constitutional law.
Lee Coffin:
So that's interesting. So you had three courses all in this political realm?
Roman Jimenez:
Yeah, which I know everybody advised against because especially in your freshman fall, my advisors had highly suggested to try different classes and different departments. Honestly, that was something I didn't listen to, which I did take into account in my winter term. And I think that was partially the reason why I enjoyed it a lot better.
Lee Coffin:
Oh, okay. So you ignored your advisor?
Roman Jimenez:
I did. I ignored that advice in the first term.
Lee Coffin:
Why? I mean you could, but why did you ignore your advisor?
Roman Jimenez:
I think it was very interesting because in high school a lot of the government-related courses are just somewhat intertwined with your social studies classes. So in that sense, I never had a proper government course. So when I came to college, I think I was just extremely excited to finally do courses that were just government and what I intended to do.
I think I really did find that I needed more of a balance in terms of material. Once you do the three government courses, I mean it's reading all the time, government, the papers, writing government papers. I found that by switching it up in my winter term, I was just able to get so much more, I think out of the term in general.
Lee Coffin:
So your advisor was right. I think I hear advice from you to the seniors, listen to your advisor.
Roman Jimenez:
Absolutely.
Lee Coffin:
When you get to college and you start mapping things. I mean, some of you are very independent and you want to go your own way and try it, but what's interesting, 'cause I've seen students do this where you load up with, "Oh, I'm a science person and I just want to take science." But the blend sometimes is really helpful. Andrew, so you came in, I peaked at last at your application record and you applied thinking engineering. Are you sticking with that?
Andrew Wilson:
Yeah, I think so. I've known for a while.
Lee Coffin:
What was your first term?
Andrew Wilson:
My first term I took on math 11, which is accelerated multi-variable calculus physics 13 which is intro, covers mechanics and a little thermodynamics. And then philosophy three, which is reason and argument.
Lee Coffin:
Okay. So interesting. So comparing you to Roman for a minute, you had two of the courses that were in that engineer, pre-engineered space, and then you had philosophy. So Roman was talking about balance. Did that one philosophy class feel like a welcome shift from having calc and physics?
Andrew Wilson:
Yeah, definitely. No, it was really refreshing to have a break. I mean, as much as I love calc and physics and all of that, it's nice not to have that be the only thing you have to do.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah. What was your math course during your senior year of high school?
Andrew Wilson:
Yeah. So a pretty small school. We don't have a ton of math courses. So I'd actually done all the math courses that my school had traditionally offered. So I did an intro to multi-variable online through the University of North Dakota. One of my calculus teachers in high school helped me through it whenever I was stuck on something, I could go to him and he would help me.
Lee Coffin:
Great. So then the reason I'm asking that question is from that prerequisite, you land in this first year calc course in college. What was that like? Did it move more quickly than you were expecting?
Andrew Wilson:
Yeah. It was a pretty hard transition. I remember it was a lot of the same content, but just at a much harder level. I remember in high school and the course I did online, the exams would be very similar to an easy-ish problem and the homework. Do you understand the concept at a basic level? Whereas this, I remember the exams were incredibly hard, and I think the median on the first exam was in the '60s and they curved it after. But I remember I was taking the exam and I was like, "There's a chance, I don't know, a single question on this exam."
It ended up fine. But no, it was really a kick in the teeth at first. I'm like, "Wow, this is just at a much higher level," but don't let that scare you.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah. Well, that was Lexie's experience in linguistics too. I mean, what's interesting is two of you have now said something like this is you're used to getting A's when you're in high school. And then you come into college and I remember my niece a couple years ago was very high achieving high school student and was about to go to Boston College. And I said, "Now, Mia, you may not get an A plus in everything you take." And she looked at me like I just said, "You have horns." She said, "Of course, I'm going to get an A plus." And I said, "No, you don't. You don't need to." So Lexie, how about your first term? You had linguistics?
Lexie Gauthier:
Yeah. So I came in as a... Well, I said undeclared on my...
Lee Coffin:
Application?
Lexie Gauthier:
Application, but I came in wanting to do math and I didn't take any math classes my first term. I took intro to linguistics because I had an upperclassman friend tell me during our pre-orientation program that it was a good class ... And he said that it itched the same part of your brain that math does. I was like, "Okay. Well, I'll try it out." I took ethics of the internet, which was a part of my writing 5 course. And then I took global indigenous politics, which is in the Native American Studies Department.
Lee Coffin:
Well. You know what I love about that last course? Say it again, the politics of indigenous...
Lexie Gauthier:
Global indigenous politics.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah. To the listeners, those aren't the kind of courses you usually take in high school. You take social studies. You might take world history. The classes you're hearing, the three of them describe, I mean, yeah, physics, but it's really thermodynamics or indigenous politics or international relations. I mean, right out of the gate in these college environments, you have these topics that are really interesting and sometimes specific.
But what's interesting about the three of you is it doesn't sound like anybody had a big survey course during your first term. Is that true? Did any of you have a larger lecture course?
Andrew Wilson:
I would say my physics course was on the larger side, but I think were-
Lee Coffin:
How many?
Andrew Wilson:
Well, I think there were two sections. My section was the earlier section. It actually only had, I think, 25, but the other section had I think 40. So there ended up being a good number of people, but there's plenty of resources. I think the class had, I don't know, maybe half a dozen TAs and there were plenty of office hours between all of the TAs, so it felt very manageable.
Lee Coffin:
Andrew, so let's dig into that for a sec. So you come from a high school with a senior class of 18 people, and so far, it sounds like one of the larger courses you took in college so far had, even if it was the section of 25, that's more people than were in your senior class?
Andrew Wilson:
Oh yeah. No, no, it was definitely point of transition.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah. I'm going to do "large" in air quotes, large is relative. But for you, that was a much bigger classroom than you'd ever experienced. What was that transition like?
Andrew Wilson:
Yeah. Well, for physics, I'd say it was probably a little different than maybe some of the other ones since the professor made it a point to get to know everyone's name. But that's definitely not the case for all of them. They usually try their best to get know everyone individually. But I mean, it's impossible. They only have 10 weeks to learn the names of 60 some odd people. I'd say it was good to sort of become acquainted with the people who sat around me. I remember the guy who sat right next to me is now one of my good friends in physics 13, Nathan. Of course we'd study together, review homework together. So it's really important to use your classmates as a resource.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah. Well, and it's an interesting topic to think about the size of classrooms because some colleges you can have a thousand people in one class or you might have five. One of the decisions I think our seniors in high school are facing is what's the best environment for you to do your best work? So if a classroom, which is really an auditorium where there's hundreds of you taking notes, feels comfortable, really important to dial into that.
If the idea of being in a really tiny classroom that you might be coming from a huge public high school, and the idea of a course with five or six of you seems surprisingly interactive. How about Roman or Lexie? Did you have really tiny classes at Dartmouth so far?
Roman Jimenez:
I mean, yeah, I'll jump in here in this instance, but I enrolled in a senior seminar unknowingly which was American Political Behavior. And that was quite a small class. I don't remember the exact number, but off the top of my head it might have been about 10, 15 of us, 10, 12, 13.
Lee Coffin:
So nine seniors and you?
Roman Jimenez:
Yeah.
Lee Coffin:
So most colleges have some set of requirements that students have to fulfill as they move, not just through the major, but more broadly through their undergraduate experience. And often in the first year there's a writing requirement. A couple of you have mentioned humanities or expository writing, or an English requirement. So for listeners at Dartmouth, there's a writing requirement, and that's broadly true.
So let's talk a little bit about what that first year writing seminar or class is like. Did your first paper come back with a lot of red ink on it from the professor? What was first year writing like as a course to shift you from what you knew in high school and how you might have written a paper in that space versus what the college faculty were expecting you to do? Lexie, what did you experience?
Lexie Gauthier:
Yeah. This was one of the biggest adjustments for me when I came to Dartmouth. In high school, I took AP Lit my senior year, and I loved the class. I learned how to write two essays in two hours or something like that. And for me, it was very much like, "Oh, this should be a pretty easy class to get by." Because it's like, "Okay, I plug in this. I plug in these, this evidence, and then there we go."
I also had to write a paper about philosophy for the first time in my life. I am very much a logical structural writer. So stepping outside of that in a class was really hard for me. I know that my professor was like, "This isn't necessary." Or he'd be like, "What do you mean by this?" And I'm like, "I don't even know what I mean by this. I've never written about this before." It was really tough.
So during the writing 5, the ethics of the internet course I took, we did a lot of reading and I seemed to do better when I structured it around an editorial, thinking about more. If people want to read this, what are they going to get out of it of it? What are they going to learn? Trying to be more creative was really hard for me and it pushed me out of my comfort zone.
But it was, I think, good in retrospect because now when I go back and read my writing from high school, it is painful to read it. It's like, "That's not necessary. You don't need this. This is filler." All that stuff. And then moving into my reading Jane Austen class, which was my seminar, I did very different writing 5 and then seminar classes because with the Dartmouth writing 5, you can choose what courses are interesting to you.
So I dipped my toes into the English department through that course, and I had watched all the Jane Austen movies with my mom, and I was like, "Oh, this is going to be a breeze." I know everything that I need to know. I know how to write about literature. No, that was not the case.
Again, I had to be more creative and step out of my comfort zone when doing that. I think that the first essay I got back, I was defeated in a way because I was like, "Wait, I thought I knew all this stuff." But in reality, they're trying to... In the writing department, I feel like they're trying to make you into your own writer and not into a writer that you've been trained to be.
So for me, I had to channel my own voice. And by my final essay, I was writing about things that really interest me, but also I had to channel my own voice and I had to channel my creativity. And in the end, it ended up being a way better paper.
Lee Coffin:
What happened to Roman?
Roman Jimenez:
Yeah, I resonate with a lot of what she said. I think in general, I had a very different... My feedback was very different. I mean, obviously I was going into government and I knew what I did. A lot of my prior writing experience was very much legal based. And there's a format to that. There's a specific way of writing. So actually what I've noticed is every single one of my feedbacks that I've received from my professors has all mentioned how it sounds very legal and very law from that scope.
And they're always like, "It has to come off completely differently." I mean, for the first time in my humanities courses, I was actually writing analytics on film theory and incorporating that into a writing style that is not a law paper is very, very different. I think also me just going into college knowing I would do pre-law and that would be what I want to do after my undergraduate education, I really viewed my undergraduate education as preparing for law where I wasn't viewing it as its own thing like studying government.
I think that was a very different perspective I had to mentally switch into. A lot of that was things to my teachers who realize at the moment, I'm a government major, I'm here in an undergraduate and liberal institution, and that writing should reflect more of that rather than so much preparation for something I will have plenty of time to view in the future. So I think the writing course really did prepare me for getting me on track and making me realize that earlier.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah. That's helpful. So sometimes the required courses are revelatory. You might say, "Oh..." Andrew might be looking at it going, "I'm an engineer. Why do I have to take a writing class?" Right? Did you think that?
Andrew Wilson:
That was my attitude going into it, yep.
Lee Coffin:
And what happened?
Andrew Wilson:
I would say I had a lot of the same experience as Lexie. I remember midway through the term, I wrote a paper and I talked about three points. I think I spent four paragraphs discussing my first point, maybe one paragraph in my second and two on the third. I said, "Wow, is this going to be okay?" It's not an even distribution. I handed it in and she liked it and the professor liked it. She's like, "You don't even have to stick to the three-point thing. You can say however many your few points you like to make your point."
Just like Lexie, I took AP language in high school and I added down to a formula at the end. You plug in this sentence here, that piece of evidence there, and it'll all work out. It's completely different here. You just have to write to get your point across. I'm in the middle of my seminar right now and I think that'll be a little bit different. I know he's saying that the professor wants to make it a point that we'll try writing in different styles and different personas just so we can practice different voices.
Lee Coffin:
I mean, what I like about the points you're all making is, I think for a lot of students coming out of high school where you've been high achievers, what you're all... You all got to college and you're doing well, but you had to make some adjustments. And the good news is your applications that got you into the college certified, you can do the work.
But that doesn't mean you don't have to recalibrate yourself. I think my advice to the listeners is don't get discouraged at the beginning when things aren't as smooth as you might have imagined. Because what you have on your transcript from high school is the ability to succeed. You might have to reinterpret what that means. I think Lexie said that. You might have had a certain way of studying because that's what the high school required and you did well in that space. College invites you like sometimes one of the disciplines pushes you out of that comfort zone. And you have to reimagine how you study and what you're interested in. What's been the most challenging course you've taken any of you?
During your first year, what was the one that you're like, "Whew, this was not what I thought was." It might be linguistics for Lexie, but maybe not. Which course did you try and you said, "Yeah, that's not my cup of tea."
Andrew Wilson:
Yeah. I guess I can start. I know we talked a little bit about math 11. I'd say that was probably the most difficult just 'cause they made the problem so dang hard. I went into it having a little multi-variable experience and I thought it would be, "Oh, this will be a nice introduction to Dartmouth classes. I'll know most of it. I don't have to work very hard. I can focus on physics and philosophy." And that was not the case. That was definitely the most stress and nuisance class I've had so far. I mean, think it was a net positive in the end. It definitely built character, built study habits. But no, that one was a bit of a doozy.
Lee Coffin:
A bit of a doozy. Roman, did you have a doozy?
Roman Jimenez:
I think it would have to be the writing program classes. I took not the humanities one, but the constitutional law class because, again, I think I just had to make that mental shift. A lot of that came down to the relationship that I was able to build with the teacher. The professor was really able to advocate for different resources on campus in order for me to utilize, which is a writing center here at Dartmouth. They have peer tutoring, which was an awesome resource just to have my work read by other students and just peers who maybe... And it's not necessarily that they knew what I was writing on, but that was what I needed is somebody who had a fresh mindset on what they were reading in order for me really to get valuable feedback in order to make those changes and to write better. So I definitely think it would be the writing program and just those classes in general that I had to figure out how to use resources with.
Lee Coffin:
And did the idea of needing a tutor or using a tutor, did that sit well with you at the beginning or did it not phase you?
Roman Jimenez:
I mean, it was a bit difficult, especially with writing. It's a very personal experience, and I know that we're all used to creative writing, especially when we had to do the application process. Writing is a very personal thing, especially for me. It's always been something that is mine. I don't like having people read my work very often. So having to actually admit like, "Hey, maybe I should have somebody read my work and not necessarily guard myself from feedback and allowing myself also to absorb that feedback and know that my writing is not perfect and they're going to make comments on that and I'm going to be able to build on that," I think that was very important for me to do.
Lee Coffin:
So let me shift just a smidge. So we started with Roman telling us he ignored his advisor at the beginning and chose the courses he wanted. I think Lexie mentioned having peers suggest, I think it was linguistics. As of course she might... So talk a little bit about the dynamic between the advice you might get from a faculty member versus the peer-to-peer advice. What's that like during particularly the first term as you're exploring this new place and you've got someone down the hall saying, "Don't do that, do this." How do you listen and move forward through that space?
Lexie Gauthier:
Yeah. So I think that I was lucky enough to get plugged in with upperclassmen pretty early that I really respected because I saw them being successful here on campus and I wanted to crack that code, but I also protested the advice that was given to me from my advisors because of course I know what's best for me. But obviously that wasn't the case. I think that I took a lot of what was said to me with a grain of salt by my advisors. But coming back, now that I'm working as a tour guide for admissions, I'm thinking about all these things that were told to me and I'm like, "Wait, those are so true and those are so valid." But one of the things that I have found is that the college is changing every year, every four years, however it is.
So the seniors giving me advice are giving me advice based on their experience. I think that that's really valuable. Also the advisors, they're working in the here and now with your class, so it's important to take both of those into consideration that the upperclassmen are going to be giving you advice on their experiences that may have changed or adapted over the years. And because a place like Dartmouth is so dynamic, there's always things moving around.
Even just with our language requirement now we have a different requirement than what the seniors now had. So I think that it was taking that advice like, "Okay, I'm going to look at just the core of what they're saying and then I'm going to go to my advisor and my advisor is going to help me process."
Lee Coffin:
Yeah. And Lexie, you bring me to a question I was just about to ask where you come out of high school, some of you might have AP scores or IB scores or something that suggests to you that you are pretty advanced in the subject. And then you get to college and maybe in a foreign language, for example, you had AP Spanish and then you take a placement exam and they say, "Start in Spanish 1." And you're like, "No, I'm going..." Have you found yourselves in a space where you had to place into a sequence? It could be language, could be mathematics, where you needed to check yourself around how ready you might be for a topic.
Lexie Gauthier:
I did the summer writing requirement where you submit your writing to the writing department and then they place you in writing 2, 3, writing 5, or humanities. I was very much like, I'm going to get into humanities. I have to get into this because it's very competitive. And when I was wait listed for it, I was like, "Wait, what do you mean I shouldn't? I thought for sure I had it. I worked really hard on the essay. I worked for weeks and I didn't get it."
So then looking back on my writing 5 and my seminar experience, I'm like, "Yeah, they kind of made the right choice." I was taken off the wait list for humanities to do it in my winter term for my seminar, and I decided not to because I think that I learned a lot about my writing and shaping it, and I wanted to continue on that trajectory. So I was like, they've been the ones placing us into these classes. They know what they're doing for the most part. And coming from a rural small school, I'm like, "Okay. So I'm going to trust that they've been at Dartmouth longer than I have. They know more about the school than I do." So I took a step back from it and then it was a lot easier for me to transition into the writing.
Lee Coffin:
I think that's the news you could use out of that story around the advisors, the mentors. The peers are giving you insights into... This is how you make this place work on your terms. I think it's easy to say, "No, I'm going to do it my own way." You're in a lot of places you're able to do that. But I think being able to synthesize the advice and not overload. I think the other trick... Man, I'm wondering how tough Andrew found the combination of physics and the calculus in the same term. How was that?
Andrew Wilson:
Yeah, it was definitely a big adjustment to have that be my first term. I remember I was talking to an upperclassman and he said, "Wow, you're doing two STEM classes your freshman fall. That's ambitious." And I hadn't thought anything of it. I saw a list of pre-requisites I needed. I started to pile them on. But no, physics had a three-hour lab every week, or I think it was most weeks. And then I've already talked enough about calculus. It was definitely an adjustment. Not impossible, but definitely took a little change of the study habits.
Lee Coffin:
So tell us about your winter and your spring term. What sequence followed that calc and physics fall?
Andrew Wilson:
I'd took writing 5 and gov 3, which is the American political system, along with physics 14, which is the next in the intro physics sequence in the winter. And right now I'm doing engines 20, which is the computer science prereq for engineering. I'm doing math 23 differential equations, and I'm doing my first year seminar now.
Lee Coffin:
So it's interesting about Andrew's journey through his first year as an engineer or as a pre-engineer is a lot of your first year was engineering. I mean, you were doing the prerequisites and one physics class builds on the next. I think for the STEM-focused kiddos out there, or pre-meds, it is more sequential. I mean, you're going to take course one than course two. Maybe you jump over one, but they're building blocks that bring you from the beginning through the sequence that leads up to the major versus if you're not in that STEMy field, I mean, Roman is floating around government and IR, and you don't need to do them in any particular order usually. So Andrew, have you declared your major yet?
Andrew Wilson:
Yeah. Not officially. I would say you definitely... If you want to be an engines or a STEM major, you have to make the decision at some point. But I wouldn't say it has to be right at day one. There's definitely some people who are not first years who are in these intro tracks still and they're doing just fine. So it'll all work out. You don't have to go in day one orientation, I'm going to be an engineer. But you definitely do have to decide at some point probably around your sophomore year to make it work.
Lee Coffin:
Lexie, where are you in the... You started undecided with math in your back pocket. Sounds like you might have shifted a little bit away from that.
Lexie Gauthier:
I for sure want to be a gov major. I took a gov course in the winter, and I have never... Out of all the classes I'd taken, that was the most interactive course that I had been in. I was always raising my hand. I was always asking questions and I was like, "Wait, I actually really enjoy this. So for sure a gov major. And then I want to do linguistics in some form with Native American studies. So Dartmouth has a lot of really cool ways to modify that and work around that. So I can either major in Native American studies and minor in linguistics. I'm going to kind of figure that part out. But for sure, the gov major is pretty much set in stone.
Lee Coffin:
I think I know the answer from Roman. You started free long gov and you're still there.
Roman Jimenez:
Yes. But interestingly when I was in the track of doing the intro courses for my government major, I actually heavily considered not pursuing government any longer. But then I took my upper level course, my government 83, that one really, really assured me that I loved government. And that's something also about college that I found was extremely interesting.
I was not the biggest fan of my intro courses, but I absolutely loved my upper level courses because they became way more niche on subjects within government that I found more interesting. They were more case study based and whatnot. So for spring term, actually, all of my government courses are upper and mid-level courses.
Lee Coffin:
So true or false, your freshman year at college is a time to explore.
Andrew Wilson:
I would say true.
Lee Coffin:
True. Okay. Thank you, Andrew. Why?
Andrew Wilson:
Yes. I'd say back we were talking about the taking advice from upperclassmen and advisors. The one piece of advice that ran contrary to my prior belief that realizing is really true that they were both saying is at Dartmouth, we have a bunch of... We call them distribs. They're distributed requirements since it's a liberal arts school. So we have to take a few world culture courses, a few in sort of every department.
Everyone was telling me, "Don't take a course just because it fulfills a distrib." I said, "Oh, come on. Don't tell me that. I got a bunch of engines courses to get to. I got to get these all out of the way." And it's really, "No, don't do that." You just have to define your way and explore. One of my good friends, I think like Lexie took a linguistics course and fell in love with it. And now it might be a minor or a dual major or something like that.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah. Well, I think that's the point I was trying to get to, where sometimes you have not thought about a topic or a major or a program coming out of high school and you find a course during your first year where you say, "Oh, this is a really interesting subject that I had not thought about, but it pulls off of the things I really like." But it presents them in new ways.
My advice kind of not as the dean of admission, but just as a pre-major advisor would be: don't be so set in your ways as you come into... Unless you're at a college where you've had to declare a major right out of the door, and you're in a school within a university where it's like, "I'm studying business and this is the curriculum and I've got a follow it."
But if you're in a liberal arts space, you've got a year plus to really see where you might be best situated. And you might stay right where you were as a high school senior when you were applying. And you might say, "You know what? I've discovered something I wasn't anticipating." So as we close, what one piece of advice would you give high school seniors about their academic experience as they make their college decision?
Andrew Wilson:
I guess if I had to pick one, I would say trust yourself. You've made it through high school, and if you've gotten accepted into college, then you definitely have what it takes. It'll definitely be a change, but don't be afraid to ask yourself and you have to remember... I've definitely... There were a few times this year, more times than I'd like to admit. I'm like, "Am I really smart? How did I get here? But you really just have to trust yourself. You are smart. You do have what it takes. Don't be afraid to ask for help, and it'll all work out in the end. Even if you get, God forbid, a C in a class, it'll still be fine.
Lee Coffin:
Amen. I think that's kind of a great way to wrap our episode, kind of summoning Andrew's don't question how you got in. Never doubt that you're smart. Trust that the admission process that brought you where you're going paid attention to your ability to do the work. It doesn't mean there aren't some speed bumps at the beginning, or maybe a 50 on your first linguistics test or a calc exam that makes you bang your head on your desk.
That is part of this experience. And your first year will unfold in really interesting and exciting ways. So Lexie, Andrew, Roman, thank you for joining me on the Admissions Beat and sharing your insights with our friends in high school.
Lexie Gauthier:
Thank you.
Lee Coffin:
You're welcome.
Andrew Wilson:
Thanks for having us.
Lee Coffin:
So seniors, April continues to wind down. We've got two more episodes to go to help you get to your enrollment decision. Stay tuned. For now, this is Lee Coffin from Dartmouth College. Thank you for listening.