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.
Welcome back to my blog, fellow prospective students! As a refresher, I am Antônio, a '25 from Brazil, and a big fan of parties. As some of you may have heard about, Dartmouth is known for its prominent party culture. When applying to colleges last year, many of my friends who came to school in the US warned me about how intense weekends at the Big Green can be. As someone who particularly enjoys that aspect of college life, I was really excited to arrive to Hanover and start going out with my newly made friends.
It is fair to say, however, that I was somewhat surprised to see how the party scene dynamics work out on campus. Coming from Brazil and having attended a boarding school in Canada, I was used to going out, but had never had any experiences with Greek life. Besides small room or flat parties, Dartmouth students usually get together at fraternity and sorority houses. Although these spaces may seem intimidating at first – especially when you just arrived to campus – there are visible efforts to make everyone feel welcome, especially for freshmen.
One of the ways Dartmouth makes sure first-year students are having a good time and still remaining safe and comfortable is through the so-called "frat ban." This is a project from administration that prohibits any Greek house to host freshmen for the first couple of months of fall term. This way, freshmen are encouraged to seek other social spaces and bond with each other before being able to enter these other spaces, which may be too much for those not acclimated to campus culture yet.
Another thing that makes me feel comfortable when going out is the existence of gender inclusive houses. Near my residence on campus, there are three: Tabard, Phi Tau, and Alpha Theta. Different from the other Greek houses on campus, these houses have members of different genders. Thus, the Greek space is diverse and inclusive, which has helped me as I navigate Dartmouth's social culture.
Partying!
Usually, I go out twice in the weekends. Once on Friday and once on Saturday. In one of these days, I usually go out "fratting," going house by house until my friends and I find somewhere with music we like. On the other day, we typically get together at the senior apartment of one of our friends, where we throw our own party and have fun on our own. Although intimidating at first sight, partying at Dartmouth is really fun. Once you find your group of people and the spaces you like, you are most likely to have fun all of your weekends here :)!
