Hey y'all, welcome to the woods! My name is Garrett Crouch, and I'm a '26 from Edmond, Oklahoma. Besides blogging, I'm involved in undergraduate research, Greek Life, as well as the Dartmouth bike shop! In my free time, I enjoy reading sci-fi, listening to 90s rock, and playing video games. Other than that, I'm thrilled to have the opportunity to share a bit of my Dartmouth student experience with you, stay a while and enjoy!
For my first term at Dartmouth, I had a lot of fun exploring different courses/areas of study that piqued my interest—EARS 14 is a perfect example. This course in particular was very friendly to new students. I had a lot of fun analyzing the ways in which Earth's weather system works, everything from the tornado and climate labs to black lightning and supercooled ice. Professor Osterberg made the course extremely fascinating and personable! I'm extremely glad I took this course and recommend it to anyone interested in Earth Science.
I had zero programming experience prior to taking this course, and quite honestly, It was a split decision on my part. Nonetheless, I'm extremely glad I took COSC 1, and as a byproduct, I have a newfound love for computers. I came out of the course with a solid foundation in computer science principles as well as programming skills. More importantly, I made my own fully-functioning video game! ; )
I didn’t anticipate this course being all that different from Latin I, but it ended up being a nice surprise. A typical Latin course at Dartmouth involves small class sizes, group work, and the occasional lecture; however, within Latin II, we had opportunities to take a wide variety of field trips and learn more about the history of the Latin language as well as the many people that spoke it. I thoroughly enjoyed stepping outside the sphere of strictly language work (grammar, vocabulary, etc.) and learning more about the history of Latin in Latin II.
Psych 6 is by far my favorite course I've taken at Dartmouth—this course made me decide to pursue the neuroscience major. Whether it was walking out of the Moore Psychology Building with goosebumps down my spine having just seen a human brain in the flesh, or lying in bed rewatching lectures on the cellular mechanisms of long-term memory storage. This course genuinely made me feel like a kid discovering the world again for the first time, I loved it.
I loved this course—it was a fascinating mix of the neuroscience behind addiction as well as a deep dive into every class of drug. What particularly stood out about this course was the ability to connect my undergraduate research lab experience with the concepts I was learning (I'm currently involved in a neuroscience research lab studying psilocybin, the main psychoactive compound found in magic mushrooms, so it was fascinating to see the parallels there).
These past few days (and admittedly weeks), I've spent a significant portion of my time rereading old blog posts and pondering all that's happened during my first year at Dartmouth. On one hand, while I'm definitely excited about summer, saying goodbye to being a first-year certainly has a sad/sentimental undertone to it—I've met so many amazing people as well as made lifelong memories, it's hard to admit that this period of my life is coming to a close. Regardless, I've been trying to remind myself that I still have a lot of time left here and a lot to look forward to! Speaking of, you might ask, what are my plans for the summer/immediate future?
This summer, I plan to go back home to Oklahoma and prioritize my time by hanging out with friends and family. While a decent amount of my peers are pursuing internships or other career-oriented opportunities, I plan on getting a job near my house at one of my favorite burger restaurants. I've received a variety of reactions to my plan, but with Dartmouth's quarter system, I've realized that realistically this is my last summer truthfully "up to me" considering Sophomore Summer obligations and other various career opportunities for upperclassmen; I'm happiest when I'm at home with friends and family, so working at home is a viable solution. On top of working locally, I plan on starting a small band with some high school friends as well as working on starting my first novel! I haven't worked out all the kinks yet, but I'm excited.
As summer is a decent chunk of time concerning Dartmouth's fast 10-week terms, I also plan to spend a lot of my time over the break thinking about how I want to get the most out of my next three years at Dartmouth. There are a few big questions I'm in the process of figuring out—for one, I'm still fairly uncertain of what I want to major in, although thankfully Dartmouth doesn't force students to declare until the end of their 5th term in residence (sophomore winter/spring). I'm also not sure whether or not I'd like to participate in Greek life. Greek life is a big deal at Dartmouth, and I'm still not sure whether or not it's the right space for me. Overall, sophomore year is a busy time of year at Dartmouth, so I plan on making the best of my summer and it treating it akin to a miniature gap year!
For my course load next fall, I'm not entirely sure what my schedule will look like, but as of right now, I plan on finishing my language requirement with Latin III (the culmination of the three-course Latin sequence at Dartmouth) and enrolling in two other courses that interest me.
All in all, I have a lot to think about, but I'm very grateful that I'm able to go home and contemplate these sorts of things while enjoying my summer.
To send you off with one last message—I sincerely hope my first year of blogging at Dartmouth was both an informative and enjoyable experience for you. I had a lot of fun writing and documenting my journey as a first-year student, and I'm excited to continue next year. See you in the fall! : )
Your friend,
Garrett
P.S. Enjoy this picture from one of my final Woccoms (walks around Occom Pond) this term
It's easy to forget how easy it is to access walking trails during the hustle of a Dartmouth term. As graduation nears, I am reminded of how special it is to step off campus and enjoy quiet moments in nature.
With a solar eclipse sweeping across North America for the first time in nearly seven years on April 8th came a road-trip with hundreds of other Dartmouth students to a zone of totality near campus: St. Johnsbury, Vermont!
After returning from an enriching study abroad program, I'm diving into a bustling spring semester here at Dartmouth. Here are my four courses I'm taking this term!
