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!
Everything from the Dartmouth Coach transporting students on and off campus (24/7), to the conveniently located Zipcars on campus, Dartmouth does a phenomenal job at accommodating all kinds of travel, here's the rundown:
1. The Dartmouth Coach (my personal favorite component of Dartmouth's transportation system). The Dartmouth coach is the main line of transportation for students who don't have access to a car or another form of transportation. The coach runs 24/7 and has routes from Hanover to nearby cities like Boston and NYC. It also makes a few small town stops, mostly for non-student passengers. The bus ticket prices are pretty fair and the service is always really great. Most students go through Boston Logan International Airport when traveling to and from campus, so the Coach's Boston route travels directly to the airport for added convenience. Personally, I've yet to use the coach to travel anywhere other than Boston, but my experience has always been amazing, and the coach is extremely accessible for students.
2. Another prevalent form of transportation on campus is Zipcar. Zipcar is a rental car company tailored towards students. You pay an hourly rate and get access to a company-issued vehicle. For Dartmouth specifically, there are plenty of nearby Zipcars available for use, the only requirements are a valid U.S driver's license and a monthly subscription—the subscription is really well-priced considering the mileage you're able to get. The Zipcars are mostly used by first-year students as most first-year students aren't able to bring their own cars to campus.
3. Considering transportation on campus, Dartmouth is also really great about implementing opportunities to travel around Hanover as well as nearby destinations/towns. Some of the destinations include Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center and Summit on Juniper which is a nearby apartment complex. All of the bus services are free for Dartmouth students and some bus routes even offer free rides for guests of Dartmouth students transportation! During the winter, Dartmouth also has a nonstop weekly shuttle service for trips to the Dartmouth Skiway. I've travelled on the shuttle a few times now as a first-year student and it's been a dream to have the opportunity to go ski almost any time of day.
4. On the other hand, throughout day-to-day Dartmouth life, concerning transportation to and from classes and dorms, walking seems to be a common theme among students as campus is on the smaller side (under 300 acres). Besides walking though, electric and gasoline scooters are also fairly prevalent, especially for students with athletic commitments who often have to travel to their training facilities (which tend to be on opposite sides of campus).
Ultimately, to highlight again, Dartmouth does a really solid job at emphasizing availability and convenience for the travel needs of all students. With a remote area like Hanover, a lot of the time it can be stressful thinking about planning out travel windows, thankfully Dartmouth's system does a great job mitigating that stress.
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!
