Ei! My name is Antônio Jorge Medeiros Batista Silva (yes—four last names!) and I'm a '25 from Governador Valadares, Brazil. My journey to Dartmouth has crossed two continents, three countries, and over 10 schools—and I'm a strong believer that everyone's path to the Big Green was unique in a way. At Dartmouth, I study Linguistics, Native American & Indigenous Studies, and Spanish. I am passionate about social justice, language-learning, and the oxford comma!
This class is an introduction to the Spanish minor and major courses and, although I did not expect to particularly like it, it not only turned out to be my favourite but it made me start considering a degree in the department!
In this class, we analysed different productions of Latinx American theatre. Prof. Analola Santana was probably the best person I met this year at Dartmouth. Being her student was a very important experience as I try to navigate my potential majors and minors.
In this class, I was able to carve time out of my busy Dartmouth schedule to study and learn my Indigenous language: Krenak. With the help of Prof. Gokke, all students were encouraged to develop a final project that spoke to their community's needs for language learning and revitalisation. It was an extremely important class for me, not only academically, but also for my personal healing process.
I had the honour of spending my sophomore fall in Madrid, taking part in the Spanish FSP. There, Prof. Martín was not only a great professor, responsible for my favourite lecture of the program, but also an incredible company throughout our classes and in-country trips. Great way to wrap up my Spanish minor, honestly!
This was my second class in the NAIS department, and thus it took me one step closer to wrapping up my major. Nonetheless, it was Prof. Powell's genuine charisma and caring personality that made it my favourite of the term!
This course was definitely life changing! Prof. Pochedley, a visiting post-doc of the Potawatomi nation did a great job at keeping the students engaged while teaching us to see the land we inhabit as a source of knowledge and spirituality. In a majority Indigenous classroom, we got to develop individual projects related to our traditional homelands, learning to navigate the world through Native world lenses.
Prof. Gómez is one of those profs I've always wanted to take a class with. His work with the Horror genre in Modern Spanish literatures amazes me, and it was an honour to guide in-class discussions and develop my own research on the themes of science, testimony, and fear.
LING54 is an umbrella course: the actual content of the course may vary each year, but it is the common letter-number code to refer to the course taught abroad by your accompanying Dartmouth Linguistics professor. In this year's Linguistics Foreign Study Program (FSP), LING54 was a 'Language Documentation' class, wonderfully taught by Prof. David Peterson.
Before this class, I had no idea what visual and cultural studies actually encompassed. Every chat with Prof. Broner opened my eyes to a different analysis or method for interpreting literature, and for that, I feel truly lucky! We got to discuss films made by Indigenous women from all over Latin America, exposing the class to distinct ways of interacting with and stewarding the environment.
Like many of you People Places Pines readers, I have a fondness for Dartmouth. There are things about this place that have become part of my identity; most notably—as I move on to become a senior and reflect on my time here—I believe that being a Dartmouth student has drastically changed my sense of place. I know this is something many people talk about when explaining Hanover's picturesque landscape, but I lack the words to describe how intensely you can live in the environment here.
As a part of reflecting on my journey at Dartmouth—a classic stage of senioritis—I can't help but feel like I missed out on a lot. I spent more time abroad than the average student, so I ended up not having as much time to see and experience all of this place. For the fall term of my second year, I was in Spain on my first Foreign Study Program. When Sophomore Summer came—the term when your class year, as rising juniors, stays on campus for classes (and fun!)—I received a research grant to go to Brazil.
As I stayed on campus a little longer these last two weeks to work for alumni reunions, I often heard the Dartmouth Alma Mater. Dear Old Dartmouth, as it's called, is an excellent song, I have to admit. But, after all this time listening to it repetitively, one of the lines really stuck with me. It has since been one of the Dartmouth things I insist on carrying where I go as if it were a moral compass. To 'Greet the world from the hills with a hail!' seems like an almost perfect description of what I was doing all those times I went abroad through Dartmouth. From the hills of New Hampshire, I can still see and explore the world. I only have another year until I have to greet Hanover from afar.
Walking around the Wellelsey campus, it's clear that it was built with intentional incorporation of the surrounding nature. The architecture of many buildings were also mindfully crafted to support Wellesley's unique principles.
