Hi y'all! I'm Catherine and I'm from the great state of Texas. When I'm not in class you'll find me carefully curating Spotify playlists, exploring the Upper Valley with friends, or finding ways to enjoy the great outdoors through different sub-clubs with the DOC. I am the Treasurer of the club lacrosse team, a tutor for the Institute for Writing and Rhetoric, and am involved with research in machine learning and computational humanities through Sophomore and Neukom scholars!
After seeing this class in the course catalogue, it surprisingly piqued my interest. I decided to take the course on a whim, and I don't regret it for a second. Between reading various historical accounts and conducting my very first true historical research paper, I learned more about Gandhi than I ever thought I would know in my lifetime. Furthermore, I gained valuable knowledge about India's struggle for independence and subsequent partitions that have allowed me to better understand the historical context behind current day issues in South Asia. From this course I've realized that I love history, and want to pursue the discipline as a double major.
This class was AWESOME. I originally took the course as a prerequisite for another potential major. However, coming away from CS1, I now know that I want to continue further in the CS department! My professor was amazing and truly had a passion for teaching computer science and getting new students excited about the discipline. Besides having an infectious energy during class, she also made sure to make short assignments and labs fun and engaging. HIGHLY recommend. So much fun.
This term was by far my favorite so far at Dartmouth, especially by the time the snow melted and the sun came back out from wherever it was hiding. I absolutely loved this history class that I took because I felt that it helped me to better understand the way our country is today by studying our political past. I got to focus on a research topic of my own choosing, and I discovered a real love and affinity for research in the field of history.
SummerTraveling
I spent the summer at home, relaxing with my family and friends. When I wasn't at home in Houston, I was traveling with family, in particular my grandparents, who live in Florida and California.
I'm finally back on campus! I can't wait to get back into the swing of things, and enjoy the beauty of Hanover autumns. i am very excited for my classes this term, particularly a coding class in the humanities, where I will get to apply my love for computation and programming to topics in the humanities!
This class, being in the Anthropology department, was certainly out of my comfort zone. With my history background, however, I found that I had a unique perspective to contribute to class conversations, due to the varied nature of the anthropological academic approach. We learned about the history of conquest in Latin America and how that shape conquest today. What is conquest? Does it still persist? Can it ever go away? Are we to always live in the legacy past?
Spring 20S! Online classes… This class, CS52, got me through this term. With all the chaos and uncertainty surrounding everything going on, the projects for this class made me stay sane. Work for this class was fun and even stress relieving (weird, yes, I am aware). And the professor was absolutely incredible. I am super proud of all the projects I made, including most notably our app Tempo, an IOS app that makes custom workout playlists.
In order to play sports here at Dartmouth, you don’t need to be a Division 1 athlete. You also don’t need to commit hours and hours of time to practice and lift if you don’t want to, but you can still get all the advantages of having a team and getting to be athletic on a "chill" level. Club sports are a fun, casual outlet for playing all of your favorite sports.
I play women’s club lacrosse, which is very casual. We love to hang out, play some lacrosse, and eat Chipotle (see selfie below). While we are definitely one of the more relaxed club teams on campus, different sports tend to vary in intensity. For example, some club teams like women’s soccer have tryouts, more frequent practices, and a regular coach. On the other hand, in women’s lacrosse, we don’t cut — anyone can play if they want to. A lot of girls are even new and have never played before, and a lot of people play on multiple club teams.
A quick team pic before our play day back during fall term!
For the past two weekends, we’ve traveled to Burlington, VT, and Lowell, MA to play multiple games against schools like Merrimack College, Worchester Polytechnic Institute, the University of Massachusetts at Lowell, University of Maine, and the University of Vermont at Burlington. The drive time isn’t too long; it’s about an hour and a half drive at the max. It’s a nice way to get off campus for a couple of hours and just enjoy playing real lacrosse games.
But we don’t just play lacrosse! After these games, we use our opportunity to be off campus to get food from places that Hanover doesn’t offer, like Chick-Fil-A and Chipotle (definitely a huge perk). But sometimes we don’t even use games as excuses. One time we went for breakfast at this INCREDIBLE pancake house called Eaton’s Sugar House in Vermont that reminded me of the vibe of a New England Cracker Barrel, except these pancakes were AMAZING. Other times, we have social events on campus with other club sports teams. Later this term we are even planning on going on some club lax hikes and cabin overnights.
A team selfie from our favorite food stop... Chipotle!!
All in all, for us NARPs (Non-Athletic Regular-People), club sports are a blast. Highly recommend.
Therefore, to cap off my Dartmouth experience and final blog post, I thought I would share the most important lessons I've taken from the past four years.
Now, as I'm wrapping up the last days of my freshman year in college (UNBELIEVABLE), I want to share some things that I learned throughout my first year here as well.
