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 am interested in studying Linguistics, Native American & Indigenous Studies, and Spanish. I am really passionate about social justice, learning languages, 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.
At Dartmouth, students have multiple options to choose from when considering extracurriculars. Our campus is such a wide and diverse community that you can always find something interesting to do outside class time. Along with my clubs – the Dartmouth Brazilian Society and the Dartmouth College Radio – I have also discovered new activities to engage with in less formal ways. This term, for example, I had the incredible opportunity to act as the main character for one of my friend's short-films!
In his Intro to Film class (FILM 01), my friend Breno – also from Brazil – had to produce a film of his own. From script to screen, Breno is producing his first fictional narrative. It is a very interesting and meaningful piece, talking about mental health and college life as an international student. Thus, when he asked me to act for it, I could not have been more flattered!
Since the third week of winter term, I have been meeting with him once a week to film a scene at a time. Due to the film's nature, I was the only character through most of the scenes, giving me a lot of work to do! But, with no doubts, it was all worth it. Last week, when we recorded our last scene, I got all emotional thinking of all we had done thus far.
It was interesting to explore ways I could schedule my school work, my involvement in other clubs, and this one extra activity I took on this term. Honestly, I could not be happier with the result. It brought me a lot of joy to expand my knowledge of film production and explore my own acting skills, but it was also super nice to have this break from my usual routine every now and then.
A scene from our film!
Now, as he moves on to edit the piece, I am looking forward to our premiere night. I know this is no Oscars, but it makes really happy to think that, by doing this film, I had both the opportunity to further my experience as an actor and also to get closer to my friend, helping him out with his course work!
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.
Growing up in New England and transitioning to living at Dartmouth, I'm all too familiar with the unpredictability (and beauty) of New England's weather. Let me tell you about it here!
