Hello! My name is Cal Shin, and I am a '27 double-majoring in Economics and Philosophy. When I'm not studying or writing a blog post, you can find me drawing as the Design Editor for The Dartmouth, hosting my radio show at WebDCR, or spending time with my friends. And if I'm not doing any of those, I'm probably watching cat videos. Follow along as I share the moments that make Dartmouth feel like home!
I took this course with Professor James Binkoski and loved it! I had never taken a philosophy course prior to Dartmouth, so this introductory course in the department was perfect! After all, it combined my interests of philosophy with time and time travel — at least, how time and time travel are depicted in the media. This course may initially seem to be on the more technical side, but Professor Binkoski made sure to break down the various time travel theories — various ways scientists and philosophers think of time and its supposed movement — in a manner that’s easy for anyone to understand. A very popular course overall; I am fortunate to have been able to take it during my first term here!
I took this course with Professor Ha Yan Lee and it was absolutely amazing! I had my initial reservations about this course, mainly because I knew a lot of my classmates would have had some background knowledge while I had none. Professor Lee did a wonderful job of breaking down concepts in a manner that, as she often put it, is easy for even “your grandparents to understand”. Even beyond the course, the level of care Professor Lee exhibited towards her students is significant. She’s one of the most popular professors at Dartmouth, and for good reason! I ate lunch with her at The Pine through the Take a Faculty Member to Lunch program, and she gave me tremendous insight and advice! Because of this course, I have been inspired to explore more courses within the Econ department and potentially major in Economics.
I took this course with Professor Jasmina Savic and examined how the vampire figure evolved over time, starting with Slavic literature, going through Dracula and Twilight, and ending with “vampire” political figures. I realized what the portrayal of vampires could tell me about the thoughts of that society, including the fact that the early notions of vampirism are akin to modern-day diseases. For my final project, I wrote a research paper comparing the gumiho (the Korean nine-tailed fox) to several Western vampires.
SummerNew York City, New York
I had the opportunity to visit New York City for the summer! I met up with a good friend of mine, explored the city itself, and went to a networking event with other college students.
ECON 10 is one of the required courses for the Economics major. Based on my stellar experience with Professor Ha Yan Lee during ECON 1, when I saw that she was teaching ECON 10 this term, I immediately jumped at the chance to take the course with her. Once again, Professor Lee did an amazing job of breaking down concepts in an easy-to-understand manner. (The fact that her slideshows were colorful and featured various pictures of cats helped.)
My main interest in philosophy lies in normative and applied ethics, so when I saw the opportunity to take a class on the former, I didn’t hesitate! The class focused on consequentialism, utilitarianism, deontology, and virtue ethics. I enjoyed the ample opportunities for discussion, including discussion posts about the readings, as well as the table-wide conversations. My table, in particular, had lots to say, and there was one reading in particular where we ended up diving into discussion, not once, but twice! In fact, we had so much to say that all of us coincidentally chose to write our essay on this reading — and none of us knew until after we started talking about our papers!
Picture this: it's the day before Valentine's Day. You open up your inbox, expecting to see yet another campus organization with yet another fundraiser for Valentine's Day. Instead, you see the following:
"Today, AI makes you lonely, sad, disengaged, and unimaginative. Can you reclaim the pursuit for happiness? Can you be yourself?"
That's quite a way to begin an email, don't you think? As a philosophymajor, I was hooked. Intrigued, I read on and was surprised to discover that this was for a retreat specifically about how artificial intelligence affects our lives. Even before coming to Dartmouth, I have been interested in the intersections between ethics and AI. I hadn't had the chance to explore this in any of my classes yet, but never thought the opportunity would arise through a four-hour retreat on a Saturday offered through a collaboration between five departments and institutions!
I submitted my application to the retreat and was fortunate enough to be among a small group of students who were accepted! Saturday morning, I made my way to the location, and wow, the next four hours would feel like a whirlwind. We discussed the symptoms that seemed to make AI and happiness incompatible, especially from a creative and social aspect. Then, we created poems in small groups, the caveat being that one of us was a human prompter, while our partners were the large language models (LLMs) actually generating said poem. (As the prompter in my group, I made my partner write a poem about cats.)
Midway through the retreat, we walked to Left Bank Books, a small bookstore in downtown Hanover. Fun fact: A lot of the books there are donations from members of the community! Because the retreat made it possible for us to get a couple of books for free, my inner bookworm excitedly roamed around, browsing the shelves and seeking my next read. I ended up getting two books in my favorite genres, fantasy and science fiction! (Funnily enough, one of them is about AI.)
Finally, we discussed how societies' portrayals of happiness affects how we attempt to achieve happiness. We realized that we think of the emotion as individualistic, rather than a collective goal. We then thought of what happiness could be if we started thinking of it as collaborative. While people may have different views on what happiness looks like, we realized that in general, happiness is contagious. If a small group of people—say, our friends or family, with similar interests and goals—are happy, they have the potential to spread that happiness to larger circles, and so on and so forth. This may be somewhat idealistic, but I left the retreat that Saturday afternoon with a clearer mind. AI may consist of a bunch of code and algorithmic decisions, but at the end of the day, happiness is a human quality.
I've never felt the saying, "Time flies" more strongly than now. How am I already halfway through my Dartmouth career? This winter marks the end of my 6th out of my total 12 terms, the halfway point of my Dartmouth journey.
