Hey!! I'm Eloise and this is my blog! I'm a '28 from New Holland, Pennsylvania. I love to read and write in my free time and I'm so excited to get involved in clubs at Dartmouth. I love exploring the outdoors and I can't wait to go on more trips with the Dartmouth Outing Club. I hope you enjoy my blog!
This course covers modern American history through an imperial lens. It was my first time learning about these topics and events in-depth, and I learned so much! The class focuses on small group discussions and having nuanced conversations about assigned readings. It was the perfect class for my first fall! I cannot recommend this class enough!
Dartmouth prides itself on its liberal arts education and its world-class faculty! This term, I had the opportunity to experience the variety of courses and teaching styles Dartmouth offers through my three classes.
My first class this term wasPublic Policy 5. Pub Pol 5 is a very popular class as an intro public policy course. This year, there were two sections with about 40 students in each. This class was by far my biggest one yet at Dartmouth!
Most class time is devoted to the professor's lectures. That being said, multiple times in class, we break up into small groups and think through the topics of the day in groups.
A lot of guest speakers and alums also came to class to speak with us. Professor Anita Hill came for a class visit, which was so cool!
While Pub Pol is a much bigger class and the student-to-professor ratio is larger, my professor still makes time to meet with everyone one-on-one. There are countless office hours opportunities, and he is always willing to talk to students before or after class.
The exterior of Carson, which is where my Pub Pol class meets!
My second class is Latin 1. Since Latin is not really a spoken language, I don't have "drill," which is when students of introductory languages meet up and practice speaking their language in small groups. Despite Latin not having drill, I still get plenty of practice and instruction in Latin.
We meet 4 times a week, and this class has about 16 people in it. I love how small the class is because it makes me feel more comfortable learning Latin and making mistakes. A professor teaches the class, breaking down grammatical concepts and key vocabulary. Yet, we also have two learning fellows; they are students who are already proficient in introductory Latin. In class, they help us with translations and practice assignments.
The Classics Department also has an additional help session outside of class called "Help Desk." These sessions occur twice a week and are optional meetings to work on homework assignments with the professor and learning fellows.
Baker-Berry Library, which is where my seminar class takes place!
My third class is my first-year seminar, which isReading Jane Austen. All first-year seminar courses are capped at 16 students. The small class size is perfect for discussions and writing workshops.
Most of class time is devoted to discussions on Jane Austen's novels and small group writing exercises. A unique component of my seminar is that we are putting together an exhibit on Jane Austen with Rauner, our special collections library. This means we collaborate a lot with Rauner's staff. About once a week, we have a class where we work with first-edition copies of Jane Austen's books and figure out how to incorporate them into our exhibit.
All in all, my winter term classes were really excellent! I really enjoyed the variety among them and the opportunity to experience just what a liberal arts education can offer!
