My name is Eva, and I'm a '25 Mechanical Engineering BE student from Upstate New York. My time at Dartmouth has been marked by the combination of the arts and engineering on campus and you can often find me working on a new project in either the Dartmouth Engineering Machine Shop or Visual Arts Center. In my free time, I love to work on lego sets and watch the craziest reality tv I can find!
This was a great exploratory class to take as an introduction to Dartmouth. I took it with Professor DeSilva, an extremely passionate individual who made this class incredibly engaging the whole way through! Coming into college I never would have expected my favorite class to have been about monkeys and early humans, but I discovered a deep interest in the evolution of reproduction.
Coming from a background of little chem experience, this class was challenging, but fun! I learned a ton about the foundations of chemistry and their applications in the modern world. My favorite part of this class was the lab where I got to see what I was learning in class in real life. I'll be taking a lot more chemistry in the future and I feel a lot more comfortable with the material as well as how to study effectively.
Design Thinking for Engineering was an incredible class that completely restructured the way I make decisions. With an 100% project based course load, this class develops teamwork, positive attitudes, and an eye for design. Not only did I learn a lot, but it inspired me to pick up a minor in Human Centered Design.
SummerHome
I took my off term in the summer to work at a coffee shop close to home as a Barista. Ask me about where to get the best coffee on campus!
My first art class and my favorite class yet! Under the instruction of a fantastic artist, I learned about many kinds of printing and made some incredible art to add to my portfolio. This is a great class for beginning artists and stood as a great start to my arts career at Dartmouth. The printmaking community within the arts department is incredibly supportive and full of talent.
Imagine taking an engineering project from its ideation to creation all in 10 weeks: stressful, but an awesome experience! Paired with an incredible team of interdisciplinary majors, I worked on the development of an electronic kettlebell to "gamify" the workout experience.
This was an incredible theatre workshop taught by a known August Wilson scholar. We read all of August Wilson's plays over the course of this class and engaged in meaningful discussion about their meaning and significance.
The summer theater workshop is an experiential class that brings students and current artists together to work on collaborative projects. This class allowed me to expand greatly as an artist and create meaningful connections with people who are currently pursuing theater full time.
FallCincinnati, Ohio
During my off term, I pursued an engineering internship at Johnson and Johnson in their surgical devices department.
One of the first things prospective students hear about Dartmouth is how the majority of students are affiliated. Whether that's a positive or negative thing to hear before getting to Dartmouth, it's good to know that it's true! Before I got to campus, I was sure that I wouldn't join Greek life or really participate at all. I was confident that the overbearing social hierarchy and stereotypes would be enough to turn me away, but I quickly found that wasn't the case.
At Dartmouth, students aren't allowed to join a Greek space until the beginning of their sophomore year. The reasoning for this protocol is so these spaces don't feel like a dominating social space and students are able to make friends outside of such a huge group of organizations. During my freshman year, I made friends from talking to people on my dorm floor, going to socials for clubs, and talking to people in office hours. This way, I was able to meet so many incredible people with a vast amount of interests! I found myself completely content with hanging out with them on weekends and not getting involved with frats or sororities. I was able to form super close relationships with the people around me and learn how to reach out to people to get connected.
Given how comfortable I was after my freshman year, I wasn't surprised by how uninterested I was in the process of joining a sorority. The process of joining is called "rush" and pretty much consists of three rounds of interviews with every sorority and a complicated computer matching algorithm. The conversations I had with girls considering rushing consisted of what outfits they were going to wear, which sorority they considered to be the "top" one, what the stereotypes of each sorority are, and their anxieties in general. It seemed like a popularity contest that would leave me with a blow to my self esteem in the end, so I originally wasn't interested.
The last day to join the rush process, I had a conversation with a really good friend of mine who explained the reasons she was rushing. She stated that the next three years seemed daunting because of the D-Plan and she wanted a permanent sense of community that she could rely on. The idea of having something tangible to come back stuck with me, and I kept that in mind as I signed up for the process. The more I thought about it, the more I resonated with wanting a female-dominated space that would stay consistent through my time at Dartmouth.
Me and my sisters collapsing from laughter
After rushing and going through the initiation to my current sorority, I'm so glad that I made the decision to rush. Since my time joining, I've met so many incredible women who are there for me at every turn. It's always so great to see a familiar face at most campus locations and have people to reach out to for advice or just someone to hang out with! My Greek space feels like a place of love and community and I'm so glad to have found that.
Though I've had a great time in my current space, that isn't to say that Greek life is the only way to find community at Dartmouth. I have an incredible amount of unaffiliated friends who have found just as close knit of a community within clubs and other organizations. Though our social scene at Dartmouth is heavily dominated by Greek life, that doesn't mean that it's somehow better than the other options on campus. There is a place for everyone here as long as you're willing to look for it!
I have written about being a student worker plenty of times in the past, but I have yet to talk about one of my favorite jobs ever: ticket selling at the Hopkins Center for the Arts.
On Monday, April 8, 2024, a phenomenal total solar eclipse occurred — and we happened to be within the path of totality. As a result, Dartmouth hosted a variety of eclipse-related events on- and off-campus. Find out how I spent the eclipse!
