Hi guys! I'm Chidera and I'm a '25 from Lagos, Nigeria. I've lived in a big city for nearly half of my life, so it's great to experience the scenic outdoor spaces surrounding Dartmouth. Outside of the classroom, I conduct research with the economics department, I'm a peer tutor for the Academic Skills Center and I'm also involved with the Dartmouth Energy Alliance.
Taking this class was a random and unexpected decision that I am so happy I made. This class was about the intersection between human and primate evolution and our social behaviors. It really opened my eyes to how unique and beautifully diverse different societies are, and how this uniqueness influences our biology in interesting ways.
Taught by Professor Doyle, this has been my favorite class at Dartmouth so far. It was a calculus integrated with economic applications of the concepts we learned. It was the first time this class was offered at Dartmouth, and Professor Doyle made sure we all had a thorough understanding of the material. The fact that we were also able to see the real-world applications of the calculus concepts also made the class uniquely interesting.
I took this class to fulfill Dartmouth's first-year seminar requirement. In selecting a first-year seminar class, I sought out a department that I would not have taken a class in otherwise. It was an incredibly fulfilling experience and I learnt so much about Parisian Impressionist painters in the late 19th century like Monet, Manet, Degas, Morisot and Renoir. It also taught me about the political, social and economic conditions that typically inspire pivotal art movements.
SummerWashington D.C.
This summer, I interned at the International Finance Corporation in DC, through the Rockefeller Center's First-Year Fellows program which gives first-year students the opportunity to engage in public policy early in their Dartmouth careers. I lived with about twenty other members of Dartmouth's Class of 2025 and got to experience life in a vibrant city while gaining professional work experience.
I spent this term in Accra, Ghana for the African and African American Studies department's Foreign Study Program (FSP). I'm so glad I was able to take advantage of one of Dartmouth's study-abroad programs. During this FSP, I got to explore a new country and city while taking classes taught by the amazing professors at the University of Ghana.
After being away from campus for six months, I decided to start working towards fulfilling my distributive requirements. To fulfill my ART distrib, I took a Russian film class with a friend. It was an amazing experience and a testament to the ways a liberal arts education encourages you to approach each class through an interdisciplinary lens. For my final essay in this class, I explored the ways that government and political culture affect the nature of the film industry in different countries.
This class is one of the prerequisites for the international economics track's culminating experience. Dartmouth's economics major allows you to focus on a specific field that you're interested in, while also having the opportunity to take a couple of classes in other fields. Before taking this class, I had always been interested in international economics and this class definitely cemented my interests in the field.
I used my sophomore summer off term to conduct research with the economics department through the Dartmouth Economics Research Scholars and with the funding of the James O. Freedman Presidential Scholarship. My research project, which was mentored and advised by a faculty member, focused on the effects of European Union climate policy on the economy of my home country, Nigeria. It gave me the opportunity to apply and better understand several concepts I learnt in economics classes at Dartmouth.
This was the most enjoyable and impactful class I have ever taken at Dartmouth! Each assigned reading and class discussion was more enthralling and thought-provoking than the last. This class taught me how to think outside the box, write academic articles in the field of the humanities and how to intellectualise and synthesise my own lived experiences in a way that contributes meaningfully to existing literature in African Studies. Lastly, it taught me to think critically about pressing social issues within the African continent.
After six months of internships, vacations with friends, studying abroad, and spending time with friends, I'm finally back on campus, living and taking classes at Dartmouth. It's hard to believe that after spending all this time in amazing cities across different continents, I would miss the small town of Hanover and the Dartmouth community this much! My time away has simply affirmed the idea that Dartmouth is truly a unique and unmatched community. Coming back, I wasn't just excited to be reunited with my friends whom I hadn't seen in months, but also to dive back into the experiences and opportunities that make Dartmouth such a special place.
Each student at Dartmouth has the opportunity to craft their own academic and extracurricular timeline through the D-Plan. The D-Plan allows Dartmouth students to decide what they want to do for each term they are at Dartmouth. They could be taking classes on campus in Hanover, studying abroad anywhere in the world, interning at an organization, traveling, or simply relaxing and taking a break from activities! I customized my D-Plan for the previous two terms to allow me to do an internship in the summer and study abroad in the fall. As much as I missed my friends while I was away from campus, it has been so refreshing and inspiring to hear what they've also been up to these past few months and how they have used the D-Plan to design unique academic and co-curricular experiences.
While I was away from campus, I also really missed the unique way that classes at Dartmouth work. During my study abroad in the fall, I took three classes that were all within the same discipline, African and African American Studies. Although Dartmouth students also typically take three classes in each 10-week quarter, the distributive requirements encourage students to take classes in a broad range of disciplines. The distributive requirements are requirements each student must meet before they graduate. To fulfill these, students must take one or two classes in each discipline such as art, literature, natural and physical science, and social analysis. This term, I'm taking an economics class for my major, and an engineering class and film class—which are both disciplines outside of my major. These classes all seem very different but when they are approached in an interdisciplinary way, they are quite complimentary of each other and create a holistic learning experience.
I'm incredibly excited for the experiences, lessons, and memories that a new term, a new year, and new academic session at Dartmouth will bring my way.
As I approach the halfway mark of my Dartmouth journey this spring, I find myself reflecting on the significance of distributive and world culture requirements in shaping my academic experience.
It's not every day that my Intro to Chinese Culture and Understanding the Universe classes were both canceled, but the cosmos had other plans. Welcome to a rare weekday in my life with no classes!
