Hey there! I'm Isabel, a '20 from the sunny town of Tucson, Arizona. I spend most of my time at the Dartmouth Engineering, but you can also spot me hanging out with plants and my twin brother in the greenhouse, snapping photos of picturesque Hanover, or drinking iced coffee even during the winter (Arizona habits die hard). I'm an undergraduate advisor for the North Park housing community as well as a member of the marching band, Dartmouth Humanitarian Engineers, and Club Swim.
This special topics class taught Adobe Illustrator and the CAD software Rhino 3D. We laser cut, 3D-printed, and used the CNC router to cut huge sheets of plywood to make pavilion structures. My group made an 11 foot tall pineapple structure that now sits in House Center A .
This is the one class that Professor Merton teaches each year and it is well worth it just for her. The texts are transformative and lend themselves to self reflection and better learning in all aspects of life. The expertly planned assignments helped me become a much better writer.
ENGS 20 with Professor Taylor is taught in a "flipped classroom" style where one watches mini-lectures before class and works on coding projects during class. Students are assumed to have no coding experience coming into this class and are taught the basics of C and Matlab languages.
SummerTucson, AZ
I went home for the summer, enjoyed the sun, swam nearly everyday, and worked for Cocina Verify, a startup company that verifies food safety in restaurants in Latin America.
The Peru LSA+ for Spanish is one of the defining moments of my Dartmouth career. We pet llamas, hiked in extraordinarily beautiful places, visited Machu Picchu, and read amazing Peruvian literature, my favorite of which is Rosa Cuchillo by Oscar Colchado Lucio.
My favorite class ever! Taught by the renowned Argentine comic artist Liniers, we looked at Latin American comics through time and were exposed to history and many variations of the Spanish language.
ENGS 44 teaches the basics of sustainable building design. Throughout the course we designed tiny homes for varying applications and went on several field trips around the Upper Valley, including a visit to a straw-bale insulated home in Vermont.
My class designed a range of installations for the Dartmouth Organic Farm, including small buildings, amphitheaters, and comprehensive pathway systems. We went on a site visit to the Organic Farm and had weekly lessons for the software Rhino 3D.
ENGS 37 is a chill engineering class that covers diverse technologies for water and air treatment, risk assessment, design for the environment, life-cycle assessment of a product, and other related topics. We also had one week of field trips during class!
WinterTucson, AZ
I spent my winter off-term enjoying the Arizona weather at home and working remotely for a FinTech startup based in New York. It was nice to have some time to reflect on my Dartmouth experience thus far and refocus for the future.
I took ENGS 71 with Vicki May, one of my favorite Thayer professors. The course covers modeling and approximation of structural systems, for example calculating the type, dimension, and layout of beams to properly support a roof with certain applied loads.
SummerBeverly, MA
This summer I worked for Build Health International, a non-profit that designs, builds, and equips healthcare infrastructure in low-resource settings. I worked on initial design for a hospital in Rwanda and researched germicidal UV lamps at hospitals in Haiti.
In ARTH 38.01 we learned about Buddhist, Hindu, and Islamic architecture as well as Asian funerary architecture. Professor Hockley taught us the basics of religious thought and introduced us to many fabulous structures.
Modern Architecture, taught by Professor Heck, starts in the mid-18th century with Neoclassicism and ends with the expansion of the 'International Style' post WWII.
SpringTucson, AZ
I am taking Glaciology, Reproductive Ethics, and Machos & Malinches (Gender and Sexual Identities in Latin/x American Literature and Culture) remotely this spring term.
Imagine reaching the summit of a small mountain to find a group of middle-aged women in hiking boots dancing to "Confident" by Demi Lovato. This is the scene I came across recently while on a Sunday morning hike up Mt. Cardigan with my best friend.
Erica looks on as the dance class we ran into on the top of Mt. Cardigan groups for a photo.
However this was not our first time on Cardigan—Erica Busch ‘20 and I completed our first snow hike on Cardigan during winter term of this year. This particular winter hike was arranged by the Cabin and Trail (CnT) section of the Dartmouth Outing Club (DOC). CnT leads hikes of many levels throughout the year. They made sure that we were properly outfitted for the occasion with warm jackets, gloves, overboots, and micro spikes for when the trail was icy. I borrowed a large green Patagonia jacket and oven-mitt style gloves which, according to my friend, made me look like a teenage mutant ninja turtle. That hike was definitely the most exciting thing I did all winter term, especially because I accidentally grazed my micro spikes on Erica’s leg (so sorry), my nose got very cold, and nearly took out a ’21 while I slid down an icy section during our decent.
The first time we hiked Cardigan it was the middle of the winter and we needed microspikes and overboots, which Erica can be seen wearing here.
Most recently, we went by ourselves but used DOC directions to get to the trailhead. The going was much easier without ice and snow and I would say we summited three times as fast. The view at the top was incredible, dance group and all.
The tower on the top of Mt. Cardigan.
We are truly blessed to go to school in an area that is surrounded by nature. There’s a reason why one of our sports mottos is “Welcome to the woods.”Atop Cardigan you can see these woods stretch for miles in every direction. It looks like a sea of green, but punctuated with a few small lakes. The chlorophyll-filled view inspired conversation about sustainability and I was able to share information that I had just learned in my Intro to Environmental Engineering class about the cyclic pattern of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere due to trees dropping leaves in autumn. Some trees on campus are already starting to reflect this seasonal pattern.
View from Mt. Cardigan.
A fuzzy friend we ran into during our descent.
Dartmouth life is extremely fast-paced due to the quarter system, but being on the mountaintop provided me with a chance to slow down and reflect for a moment. Not many colleges have such incredible access to the outdoors and I do not take this gift for granted. Getting outside at Dartmouth has always done wonders for my happiness, and this time was no exception. The excitement of the women on top of Mt. Cardigan infected me and has lifted my mood ever since.
Planning on visiting Dartmouth as a prospective student or an interested person wanting to see our beautiful campus? In this post, I share insider tips to ensure your visit is fulfilled!
Witnessing an eclipse was one of the most exciting days in my life to date, and a solid reminder of our place in this universe. Read on to hear about it!
Growing up in New England and transitioning to living at Dartmouth, I'm all too familiar with the unpredictability (and beauty) of New England's weather. Let me tell you about it here!
