Greetings from the woods! My name is Gavin Fry, and I'm a student blogger with the People, Places, and Pines team. I'm a proud first-generation college student, carrying with me the full support of my crazy family. I plan to be involved with undergraduate research, outdoor activities, and club golf here at Dartmouth! You can find me geeking out about the weather, reading novels, and always drinking coffee (at any time of the day). So nice to meet you!
Academic Program
Prospective Environmental Earth Science Major with a Minor in Public Policy
Favorite Thing Right Now
My idea of starting a chapter of the American Meteorological Society (AMS) here at Dartmouth!
Oh. My. Goodness. What a fun class this was! As a certified weather and climate geek, I was totally entrenched in everything we done in this course. From the labs and weather presentations to the "flipped" classroom experience, I thoroughly enjoyed this class. Dr. Osterberg's excitement for the course material made it that much more enjoyable! It was truly an extraordinary first-year course to take.
I’ve loved this class from beginning to end. For one, I enjoyed it because of the people in it, but I also loved it because of the content. Through frequent class discussion, I learned about the health of our democracy and the ways it is compromised. Very enlightening class!
Religion 5 was a quintessential liberal arts course that deepened my knowledge in a subject I thought I had all figured out. As a STEM-oriented student, this class offered the perfect balance to my spring term schedule. As a result of this class, I became more introspective of how I was raised, and I'm more grateful in my ability to be a free-thinker.
SummerOff Campus Internship - Princeton, New Jersey
This summer, I explored my future career plans by participating in a research internship with the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory at Princeton University. I learned a lot about what I want (and what I don't want) in a future career, and I made so many awesome lifelong connections!
A course rooted in both philosophical theory and real, practical methods of becoming a better public speaker was the highlight of the term. Our class of 16 students grew to be a sort of "mini-family," and I'm so grateful for the connections I made. I completely changed the way I view public speaking and homed in on my own skills as a public speaker!
Once again, a course outside my major found its way into my favorite class list. This sociology course helped me better understand how children are viewed in society, the way sociologists study youth, and the major differences in norms around childhood around the world. Who knew there was so much to learn about youth culture!
Finding the balance between academic life and leisure in college is something I'm still working on, but I'm doing better this term than any other. It's easy to get caught up in the formal aspects of college – like completing homework assignments, attending office hours, fulfilling extracurricular time commitments, etc. Something I wish I'd realized prior to starting college here at Dartmouth is that, at the end of the day, this is still your life, and you control all aspects of it. During my first year, I dedicated all parts of my life to academics, resume building, getting internships, etc. Don't get me wrong, you should do those things but not at the expense of your personal well-being. This is just another stage of life – you still have to eat, take showers, do laundry, and work a job (for some). I suppose this may be something you already know, but I don't think you'll fully understand it until you get here. Reconnecting with old hobbies of mine is a perfect case study to illustrate my point.
Lately, I've been rekindling my passion for an old hobby: coin collecting. I was introduced to this pastime by both my grandfather and my dad when I was little. To this day, there's something special about holding a little piece of history in your hand. I've been told this is an "old-person" hobby, but I don't much care… I love it! Yet, I completely stopped making time for this hobby when I moved away for college. There's undoubtedly less time to do such things, especially during your first term of college, but I would argue that you need to make the time. You need to keep doing the things that give you a sense of identity and belonging while trying new things along the way. You don't have to drop everything that made you happy in your "old life" because you're now going to college where you'll only have time to do assignments and may occasionally hit the gym. It's the same life, you just need to manage your time a little more efficiently and prioritize things. For me, I thought college was a completely different life, and it is in certain aspects. However, in my experience, I think it's imperative to hold onto the pastimes you hold near and dear to your heart.
Fishing is another great example to reinforce my point. Granted, I did well with this one for a while- I went fishing frequently during my first term on campus and ice fishing during my freshman winter. Since then, I've gotten involved in more extracurriculars, research projects, and upper-level classes that are more of a time constraint. Once I let these hobbies go, I felt some of my identity and happiness going along with them. Again, you need to prioritize these things. I think it's easy to let them go in the moment because you can "always pick it up again later." However, you don't truly realize just how much it meant to you until you haven't done it in forever. Just this week, I went ice fishing for the first time in months and got my first career Northern Pike! (Pictured in the main photo above). As far as coin collecting goes, I stroll over to some local banks every once in a while, ask for a particular denomination of coins (half dollars are my favorite) and search through as many as I can to find silver coins! I won't get into the nitty gritty details because I'll end up righting another paragraph or two geeking about this hobby. I'll leave you with a picture of some of my recent silver finds and cool coins below.
My first Northern Pike I caught this week! Not too big, but it was so exciting catching this fish.
Make time for the things you love to do the most. It takes time management and setting priorities, but it's certainly feasible. I've found it immensely beneficial to hold onto the hobbies that contribute to my identity. Don't lose those in your life!
I'll geek out a little bit: The top three coins are all silver half dollars I found out of a bag of around $850 bag of Kennedy half dollars. The middle row is miscellaneous finds, which include a "proof" coin and some coins that weren't issued for consumer circulation. I also found a gold-plated half dollar. You never know what you're gonna find! It's all a part of the fun.
I took advantage of the crisp autumnal weather and vibrant foliage to explore beyond Hanover and cross off an item on my bucket list, just in time for Halloween!
SIP, or Social Impact Practicum, is a type of course that is offered at Dartmouth that centers around engaging with local community partners. I have taken two of these courses now and have found them to be enriching an interesting.
