Hi, welcome to the blog! I'm a junior from a small suburb in South Carolina, just outside of Augusta, Georgia. On campus (and virtually), I'm involved in club water polo, the America Reads program, and the TAMID student consulting group. In the classroom, I'm super excited to pursue my interest in improving the world through public policy by studying the intersection of government and economics. I hope you enjoy following along as I explore all that Dartmouth has to offer!
Coming into Dartmouth, I knew I wanted to explore the creative writing department and this poetry workshop was a great way to do that! We studied well known political, love, and ekphrastic poems and wrote our own work every week. I really appreciated the small class size the classroom became a safe community for sharing my work, and I was able to get individualized critiques from Professor Francis.
Introductory writing classes are required for every Dartmouth student, but there are a wide range of topics, which makes finding an interesting course super interesting. My class focused on the American education system and gave me a ton of freedom to choose my paper topics.
Media and Politics was a writing intensive class which fulfilled my first year seminar requirement. While honing our writing skills, we studied the impact of news media, advertising, and messaging on campaigns and policy making. The class inspired me to continue exploring the government department, where I eventually declared my major.
Free Fun & Ramblings about my Pre-Pandemic Social Life
When I was applying to college, the most important moment to me on every tour was when I asked about students' work/life balance. I knew that I was looking for both academic rigor and opportunities for fun. I was wary of schools that seemed more competitive than collaborative, and where stress seemed to be the baseline campus mood. As I was weighing all my options, Dartmouth stood out for two main reasons: the wide array of social opportunities and how financially accessible they were. In person and throughout my remote terms, I have found that my initial instincts were correct – Dartmouth students excel in the classroom and when it's time to have fun.
As I mentioned, there are a wide range of opportunities to make friends and destress on campus. Dartmouth is notorious for Greek life, which does offer tons of opportunities to dance and meet new people (during non-pandemic times, of course). I am not personally involved in Greek life and I haven't found that it's detracted from my experience at Dartmouth at all. I still have affiliated friends and spaces that feel comfortable. There is also an open-door policy for many Greek life events, which means publicly listed events are open to all students.
Greek life is definitely important to campus life, but I wouldn't say that it dominates the social scene. There are free events happening constantly, including: movies at the Hopkins Center, hockey and football games, trivia night, arts and crafts in Collis, Friday Night Rock concerts, and video game tournaments. I could fill an entire blog post with a list of all the free, cool events that happen on campus, but the point is, there are a lot of them. Some of my favorite nights have also been more casual, where my friends and I have ordered pizza and played board games before heading out to walk down Greek row.
As a low-income student, financial accessibility of social opportunities at Dartmouth has been crucial to my experience. Whether I'm attending a free arts and crafts night or running into friends at an open Greek life event, I've found a great balance between work and play as a Dartmouth student.
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.
On Monday, April 8, 2024, a phenomenal total solar eclipse occurred — and we happened to be within the path of totality. As a result, Dartmouth hosted a variety of eclipse-related events on- and off-campus. Find out how I spent the eclipse!
