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!
Junior spring—your third year's final term right before you become a senior—can be a bit of a rollercoaster for some. I know that, for me, it was a time of feeling challenged: I was second-doubting my choice of double majoring, considering an additional minor, while still dabbling in theatre and radio projects. It was also a time of making decisions: should I be pursuing an honours thesis in my department? Should I be already looking for post-graduate options? Am I falling behind from my peers?
Luckily, I am coming out of this crazy term on top of everything. And within the chaos, I still managed to enjoy my classes and take the most out of each one of them. I took two Spanish courses—SPAN50.06: Framing Gender and Ecology and SPAN80.26: Dalí, Lorca and Buñuel in America, as well as a geography class GEO09.01: Geographical Information Systems (GIS).
My choice of Spanish courses, as you might know if you're a follower of this blog, was due to my major. As a double major, I am only missing a couple credits in Spanish to finish my degrees, and SPAN80.26 offered me the opportunity of a culminating research experience in the area; I am lucky to say that I am thoroughly enjoying both of these classes.
On the other hand, my Geography class has been somewhat of a personal challenge. While I certainly only took it because I needed to meet Dartmouth's distributive requirements—a mandatory element of every students' liberal arts curriculum—learning how to make maps was an actual interest of mine. From all the distributive requirements ranging from the arts and literature to the sciences and technology, I was only missing my laboratory and science requirements. Thus, GIS was the perfect choice for me as someone who is quite unfamiliar with STEM to complete a Lab, while also learning some really fun soft and hard skills.
As scary as the world outside of college might be, I am certain that my classes are preparing me for anything I might run into after senior year and graduation. That's what I really learned this past spring term.
This winter break, I spent eight days participating in the TuckLAB: Energy Program before heading back to home. In this blog, I'd like to share more about what TuckLAB Energy is about, and why I decided to participate in it.
Dartmouth hosts a variety of speaker events, bringing experts from politics, journalism, and academia to campus. The 2024 Election Speaker Series featured figures such as Mike Pence, Elbridge Colby, and Ben Rhodes.
Dartmouth offers a variety of study abroad programs. In this post, I interviewed a member of the class of 2027 who went on the ASCL Chinese LSA+ during the summer of 2024.
"Only three classes?!" The typical response I get from someone outside of Dartmouth. Come and join as I describe how those three classes actually feel in a ten week term!
During my time at Dartmouth, within the realm of medicine specifically, I was able to gain a broader outlook on what careers / optionalities are "really" out there, and I'm here to tell you the resources that were leveraged!
A bit about the different organizations celebrating Lunar New Year on campus, and a photo gallery of Dartmouth Chinese Student Association and the Chinese Language Houses' celebrations!
