Aloha to the page of a wanderlusting writer juggling college life and several other hobbies into an eternally-short 24-hour day. I hope to shed light on the Dartmouth experience as I explore the brave new world of Hanover, NH and everything going to college here has to offer. In my free time, you can find me trying to learn a new language or building the perfect Spotify playlist (alternative/indie, anyone?). I hope you enjoy!
Taught by Gordon Henry, an Anishinaabe poet and author, this class taught me to explore Indigenous storytelling within digital contexts. I took this class with only seven other classmates, allowing us to really engage with films, comic books, and television shows in Indigenous languages or produced by Indigenous artists.
Taught by Timothy Pulju, this class taught me how to identify and understand how languages evolve over time and why. I analyzed and reconstructed fictional languages of imaginary nations in order to understand the link between language and culture, and ended up having such an appreciation for the complexity and beauty of language's place in history!
Taught by Lindsay Whaley, this class let me discover a newfound love for ancient apocalyptic literature. We analyzed ancient texts and compared them to modern apocalypses, looking at the zombie apocalypse phenomenon and other apocalypses in pop culture and comparing them to the ancient tradition of writing apocalypses. Additionally, I learned the Greek alphabet and now I can even stumble through ancient Greek passages.
FallNew Orleans, LA
Favorite Class: Native American Literature and the Law
Taught and organized by David Peterson, this class let me get into the shoes of a real linguist as we did fieldwork (virtually!!) with the Zophei language. I learned how to describe a never-before-learned language's phonology (sound system), how to characterize its grammar and words, and ultimately got to present my research to experts in the language family around the world in a workshop at the end of the term!
WinterHanover, NH
Favorite Class: Native American Literature and the Law
Taught by N. Bruce Duthu, this class taught me how Native literature can provide lens by which to evaluate, critique, and ultimately revise Federal Indian Law. During this class, I read works by Native authors like Tommy Orange and Louise Erdrich '76 alongside the opinions of definitive case opinions in American law and explained how literature can be a catalyst for Indigenous sovereignty.
Supervised by N. Bruce Duthu, I spent this off-term performing research after being awarded a Sophomore Research Scholarship to study contemporary Hawaiian cultural and linguistic revitalization. I studied 19th-century newspapers and contemporary Hawaiian texts in order to understand how Hawaiian language revitalization both past and present has advanced and continues to enable a contemporary bodied Hawaiian politic of sovereignty.
Taught by Laura McPherson, this class taught me about how languages create meaning through words. During this class, I learned how to analyze different languages' morphological processes and compare different approaches within the field as to morphological structures.
Taught by N. Bruce Duthu, this class offered me a glimpse into the lived realities of Native people in Indian Country Today. I learned about the economic, social, cultural, and historical roots for the struggles of Indigenous people today within the United States, and was able to write about the contemporary battle for Native Hawaiian visibility and Hawaiian sovereignty.
Taught by Laura McPherson, this class taught me how to engage in language documentation and how, as a linguist, we can put our skills to use to help communities seeking to document and revitalize their languages. I worked on the Satawalese language, spoken on the island of Satawal in the Federated States of Micronesia. Ultimately, my team created two dictionaries - one in English, one in Hawaiian, a website, and several materials that focused on the Satawalese tradition of wayfinding and non-instrumental ocean navigation.
Taught by Charles Eastman fellow Sunaina Kale, this class taught me about the role of sound in delineating, conceiving, and comprehending relations between people and the land in Indigenous musical traditions. Over the course of the class, we discussed Indigenous musicians, listened to music from Native peoples around the world, heard from masterful Indigenous musicians, and ultimately presented a project that creatively analyzed a song of our choice. My project focused on the song "Ask Yourself" by Foster the People, and I wrote a poem that integrated aspects of Indigenous languages and worldviews to answer questions posed by the song.
This term, I formally began the research process for my upcoming honors thesis in the Linguistics department on Hawaiian semantics! While living in Hanover, I also began working as a Senior Fellow with the Admissions department—a position I will be holding for the entirety of my last year at Dartmouth.
As a sophomore nearing the end of my fifth term as a Dartmouth student, it's just about time for me to pick a major. Let me explain how majors work at Dartmouth!
The liberal arts school that it is, Dartmouth allows for a ton of flexibility as to your course of study. We're allowed to choose from a ton -- and I mean a ton -- of different programs of study, with about 60 different majors available among Dartmouth's various departments. These majors largely consist of eight to ten courses in addition to required prerequisite classes. For myself, as a prospective Linguistics major, I just had one prerequisite to take -- LING 01, or Introduction to Linguistics. Different majors have different numbers of prerequisites, and prerequisites tend to be classes with a broader focus that give you the foundational skills and knowledge you need to take on your major classes. For the Linguistics department, for example, you learn all of the essentials so that immediately after you take LING 01, you're able to tackle most of the intermediate classes that the Dartmouth Linguistics program offers.
At Dartmouth, you can double or even triple major. Additionally, Dartmouth makes it possible for you to create a modified major, combining different fields into a single academic program customized for you. This is done with the advice and insight of the faculty of the departments you're interested in.
When the time comes for you to pick a major, you typically have to create a plan that factors in all of the requirements that a department might have. Every department has its own required courses and specifications, so usually you'll create a plan with the guidance of a faculty advisor within the department. Once you've got a solid plan, you can get it approved and you're good to go!
There's definitely a lot of flexibility in regards to major choices. Some of my upperclassmen friends chose a major and stuck with it for the rest of their Dartmouth career, while others have made the choice to declare several different majors over the course of their time at college before finally settling on a field of study they want to graduate with. Dartmouth is flexible! That's part of the beauty of being at school where the liberal arts reigns supreme. I fully expect to add a different major and probably a few minors before settling on something (but the Linguistics major definitely won't be changing). And that is perfectly normal!
In the meantime, though, I can safely say that picking a major hasn't been a stressful experience so much as a really good time. Getting my plans finalized and everything worked out has actually been a really exciting time, and it's honestly amazing to think that I'm nearing the midpoint of my time as a Dartmouth student by finally making my major official. The reason Dartmouth makes us pick this far into our academic careers is, I think, because the College wants us to be able to try so many different things before we finally (if tentatively) decide on our trajectory. Where I am now is nothing like the academic career I imagined for myself as a high school senior, or even as a fresh-faced first year student waiting to choose my first college classes -- and I wouldn't have it any other way!
Unlike some other universities, many of the STEM lecture classes at Dartmouth require concurrent enrollment in a laboratory section. What is it like navigating that time as a student?
