Hi! Welcome to the blog! I'm from a small suburb in South Carolina, just outside of Augusta, Georgia, so I'm excited to document my first New England winter! On campus, I'm involved in club water polo, the America Reads program, and research in a computational neuroscience lab. In the classroom, I'm super excited to find a balance between STEM and humanities by focusing on both English and pre-med classes. I hope you enjoy following along as I explore all that Dartmouth has to offer!
Academic Program
English with focus on creative writing (also on the pre-med track)
Here at Dartmouth, there's a special category of classes known as Social Impact Practicums (SIPS). I know when I was a prospective student, I hadn't heard of the SIPs program, but it has really impacted my freshman fall, so I thought I would explain!
This poster was made by one of my classmates and was used around the Upper Valley to advertise our exhibit!
Essentially, a Social Impact Practicums is a class with a real-world project that impacts people outside of the Dartmouth community. These practicums are included in a wide range of subject areas from environmental science to psychology to education studies. My experience took place in an English class called "God, Darwin, and the Literary Imagination" which focused on the discourse surrounding religion and evolutionary theory. Throughout the term, we studied how Darwin's Origin of Species shook up scientific, religious, and political thinking in the Victorian era.
This is my portion of the exhibit! Lots of Excel tutorials involved in the making of this poster!
The social impact aspect of the course was a final project that brought what we learned in class to an exhibit at the Fairbanks Natural History Museum, in St. Johnsbury, Vermont. While reading and analyzing different points of view surrounding creationism and evolution, the social impact aspect of the course pushed me to constantly think about how the ideas could be translated into a modern dialogue. I think the Social Impact Practicum part of the class was super helpful to my learning because it grounded all of our discussions and readings in real world conversations.
This was taken as my classmates and I explored each others' work in the museum!
As I mentioned, the SIPs part of "God, Darwin, and the Literary Imagination" involved each student in the class making a contribution to a larger exhibit at the Fairbanks Museum. I choose to focus on the relationship between childhood learning and beliefs about science and religion. My favorite thing about the project was that the topic was completely my own, and everyone in the class could work with a medium and topic that interested them. For example, my project was based on a survey and statistical analysis, but I also had friends who created paintings, sculptures, research posters, and even a hanging Ferris wheel! So, you're interested in creating a project based on your interests and leaving an impact on the world around you, I encourage you to check out Dartmouth's Social Impact Practicums! Also, if you're interested in learning more about the God and Darwin exhibit, click here for a video from when the class was offered two years ago!
Until now, I've attended all my classes at Dartmouth via Zoom. Today marked a milestone for me as I ventured to a socially-distanced classroom for the very first time to attend Global Health & Society (a relevant class given current events!)
In case you didn't know, Dartmouth operates on a quarter system, which means that in each term, students typically take three classes. However, they can also elect to add an additional course!
Have you ever wondered what a Dartmouth freshman's course of study may look like? The beauty of the D-Plan is everyone can customize their own schedules, so this term I'm taking International Politics, Global Health & Society, and Expository Writing.
Professors at Dartmouth really love their discipline and want to share their knowledge with as many students as possible through a variety of resources. I'll walk you through some of the ways they do this while telling you about my classes this term.
This winter is my first term really focusing on classes in the government and economics departments, so I thought I'd walk you all through my class schedule and experiences so far!
Dartmouth's Center for Social Impact has several opportunities for students to be involved with the Upper Valley. This year, I have the privilege to be involved in Foundations, a first-year program, and can't wait for other opportunities!
This poster was made by one of my classmates and was used around the Upper Valley to advertise our exhibit!
This is my portion of the exhibit! Lots of Excel tutorials involved in the making of this poster!
This was taken as my classmates and I explored each others' work in the museum!
