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!
And just like that, I'm wrapping up my second year of college. No doubt, my time so far has flown by. But when I consider all the memories I've made over the past two years or so, I'm reminded that time truly does fly by when you're having fun (just look at some of my past blog posts if you don't believe me!). I'm grateful that you've been along for the journey up until this point, and I certainly hope that you've benefited from reading about my perspective on the Dartmouth experience. You will undoubtedly take your own journey, but these posts are meant to give you guidance and, hopefully, a little wisdom as you prepare for college. I'm sitting in a small diner in Washington D.C. as I write this during week 10 of the 2023 spring term. I'm participating in an internship orientation that requires me to be in D.C. for the last week of classes, and this small journey has shown me that I'm truly transitioning into an adult, and you all have gotten to see me mature over the past few months!
A stroll around D.C. and storms to go with it?! I truly am a blessed person.
The somewhat bitter-sweet tone is due to this, possibly, being my last blog post for quite some time. This summer, I will be studying abroad in the Baltic region, and I'm so grateful for the opportunity to do so. More specifically, I'm adventuring to Latvia (where my mother's side of the family is from), so I will get to fulfill my family's dreams of someone visiting their home country. I feel incredibly privileged that this gets to be me. I won't be blogging this summer, but I will be sure to tell you all about the memories I made this summer as soon as I get back to blogging! After the summer, I will be taking an "off-term" as a part of my Dartmouth D-Plan, and I'm not entirely sure if I'm planning on blogging during that time as of right now. So, I'm not sure when I'll start blogging again after this post, but I'm certainly grateful that you've stuck by my side all this time.
I'm already missing the beautiful blossoms around Occom Pond!
I will be back on campus and certainly blogging during the winter of 2024 (mentioning 2024 as a time in the not-so-distant future is somewhat frightening to me), and I'll be sure to catch you up on all of the adventures I've embarked on during the past six months. Until then, I encourage you to get rest and spend time with your family during the summer before your first year of college. Ahead of you lies an incredible, unique journey at Dartmouth, and I wouldn't trade the memories I've made here for anything. From the research that I've been involved in, to the connections I've made at Dartmouth, I couldn't ask of a better place to complete my undergraduate education. I'm truly blessed to be a part of this community. As a part of this blog post, and as a sort of farewell for the time being, I strongly encourage you to go back through some of my earliest blog posts and see for yourself the journeys I'm talking about. You'll undoubtedly see how I've grown through the evolution of my rhetoric, and I'm grateful for the growth I've undergone!
At Dartmouth, there is an undergraduate requirement for language; after all, it is the liberal arts! Fulfilling this requirement looks different for various people and I will focus on my experience.
On Monday, April 8, 2024, a phenomenal total solar eclipse occurred — and we happened to be within the path of totality. As a result, Dartmouth hosted a variety of eclipse-related events on- and off-campus. Find out how I spent the eclipse!
