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 Greek Life and Dartmouth's Psychological and Brain Sciences Department. I enjoy reading sci-fi, listening to 90s rock, and playing video games in my free time. 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).
At first, I was worried Cognitive Psychology was going to be a slight rerun of some of the concepts covered in Psych 6: Introduction to Neuroscience, but this class was actually a pleasant surprise. We covered everything from how babies accurately learn their native language so quickly, to how we uniquely store complex, emotional memories as humans. We even covered a unit on everything psychologists know about the problem of consciousness, which was my personal favorite. There’s something alluring (and undeniably meta) about being conscious while learning about how we know nothing about consciousness—a recurring theme in the Brain Sciences!
Since arriving on campus, my first spring term at Dartmouth has been extremely centered around the weather/enjoying the outdoors. Coming from winter term I guess I didn't realize how much of a necessity spending time outside is—simple things like walking to class are so much more enjoyable now. Don't get me wrong, the New Hampshire winter wonderland was phenomenal while it lasted, (the midnight snowball fights and early morning skiing especially) but coming from Oklahoma, I need my sun.
With the snow finally gone, I've been able to go on daily hikes and walks around Occom Pond as well as study outside more. Check out this picture of life on the green, it pretty much sums up Dartmouth life lately:
This has been the new norm (as long as the weather permits) for campus life on the green!
Oddly enough, as the trees are starting to bloom again, and the freshly admitted 27s are seeing campus for the first time during their admitted student tours dimensions, I'm brought back to fall term. The Campus energy has been phenomenal lately, and It feels a lot like I'm experiencing Dartmouth for the first time again. I guess that's a perk of going to a school that experiences all four seasons in full force.
A recent picture from one of my daily walks around Occom Pond
My new favorite spring spot to listen to music—a hill close to the Dartmouth golf course adjacent to Occom Pond
Overall, I'm enjoying my first spring term—the weather has been great, and the essence of community is definitely dispersing throughout campus alongside the sunshine. On top of the great weather, there are also a variety of student events coming up that I'm excited about experiencing for the first time, Green Key (Dartmouth's famous live music weekend) as well as my upcoming housing community trip to New York City are two of them!
I'm going to be documenting all of it so make sure to stay tuned!
In addition to blogging, I work as a Fellow for the Tucker Center, which focuses on promoting spiritual and ethical life on campus. As part of this role, I'm leading the Interfaith Alternative Spring Break Trip. Read on to learn more about my work!
