Hi there! My name is Jenny and I'm a junior at Dartmouth studying biology and quanitative social science. Besides blogging, I also work as communications intern for the admissions office, tutor local high school students through Health Access for All, and mentor freshmen in the Great Issues Scholars LLC. Some of my favorite things to do on-campus include admiring the natural beauty around me, stargazing on the golf course, and spending quality time with the amazing people I have met.
I looked forward to this class every week, partly because of the professor and partly due to the content. We read books on a wide variety of topics, ranging from privilege and how it affects our interactions with others to restaurant kitchens and the hierarchies inherent in surgical residencies.
Biol13 is structured so that you have to work as a group on difficult class problems and even on some exams, which was novel to me and pushed me to really understand the material. This class inspired me to pursue research (both off-campus and on-campus) related to genetics.
Although this class was daunting to me in the beginning, given that I had little to no experience in either Women's, Gender, and Sexuality or Art History, it was also one of the classes in which I became the most engaged in. For our final project, I investigated the history of allegories in Western art and why they were so often portrayed as women.
SummerOff Campus
I interned at Dana Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, MA under Dr. Livingston. I explored the mechanism by which BRCA1 acts as a tumor suppressor. It was really rewarding to be able to apply what I had learned in Biol13, including specific procedures and techniques we had been tested on, to a real-life laboratory setting.
This class is notorious for its difficulty, and I would not call it an easy class. Nonetheless, it was my favorite class because I loved Professor Jacobi, who has taught at Dartmouth for 22 years, and I appreciated learning mechanisms behind why certain reactions happen. Instead of rote memorization, this class relied on being able to predict the products of a reaction, a skill picked up from lots of practice.
Although this was an introductory class, Professor Craig made it more dynamic and interactive, with several visits to the Hood Museum of Art, ethnography labs, and weekly discussion posts. I learned about everything from the Gebusi culture and their rites of passage to the opioid epidemic. For my final paper, I conducted an ethnography studying the social dynamics that take place in Baker Lobby and how that relates to the exchange of capital.
Though I had taken four years of computer science before (mostly in middle school), I did not have a very good experience with coding prior to taking CS1. However, the professor was one of the best professors I have had, explaining jargon in understandable ways and even giving out chocolate bars to students who answered the most difficult questions she would ask in class. I was certain that there was no way I would be able to create the lab assignments (such as a revolving solar system animation and map of Dartmouth that calculated the shortest possible route between two points), but she enabled all of us to through exercises, short assignments, and exams.
I took this class for a distributive requirement and ended up loving it. Each student was assigned a day to present on a certain topic - mine being patriarchy. I decided to analyze relationships in Crazy Rich Asians through a lens of the patriarchal bargain. We explored transgender issues, the history of feminism, gender identity, and so much more. Would highly recommend!
As someone who didn't know the rules to pretty much any sport, I tentatively signed up for this class. However, the professors made it clear that everyone had a different sports background, so I never felt at a disadvantage. We used Markov chains to predict winners of tennis matches, analyzed field goals kicks using logit models, and listened to guest speakers from a variety of industries.
WinterOff Campus
I spent the winter at the Fogarty International Center of the National Institutes of Health, studying epidemiology and global health. I was first involved on a project using data surveillance and social media to model Ebola outbreaks in the DRC, but as soon as the COVID-19 outbreak started, I transitioned to that. I was even able to publish my first paper!
There were also plenty of barbecues for our cravings of hamburgers and hot dogs.
One of the things I was looking forward to during sophomore summer was the chance to actually celebrate my birthday while school was in session - something which I never did in high school as my birthday is in early July. Since my birthday also falls close to July 4th, there were some on-campus events, no school on a Thursday, and a weekend for my sister to visit via the Dartmouth Coach from Boston.
On July 4th, I went canoeing on the Connecticut River with a few friends, and ended up purchasing a Ledyard Canoe Club membership, which is only $40 per year for Dartmouth students. With two canoes in hand, we set down the river to Gilman Island, where we docked and walked around. This is where First-Year Trips leaders camp the night before First-Year Trips starts as a bonding exercise. One of my friends also stayed on the island during her Sophomore Year Trip, which was a canoeing trip.
When my sister came to campus, we first hit up the Collis Farmstand Market. Each Friday during the summer, students can go to Collis Center to purchase fresh local goods using DBA (dining dollars). It was my first time there and I was astonished to see a long line of students waiting for the market to open! I got tomatoes and cheese, but there was also kale, pasta, meats, and fruits available. I will certainly be heading there again next week!
Once again, I went canoeing, this time with my sister. We circled Gilman Island and sunbathed on the docks before jumping off into the cool water. It was a lovely, sunny day and there were a ton of other people in canoes, kayaks, paddle boards, on the docks or swimming. Then, we attended a free movie showing of the James Bond movie, Goldfinger, at the Hopkins Center of the Arts.
On my actual birthday, I got together a group of friends and we went downtown to Market Table, a brunch spot that I had not been to, and picked up a cake from Lou’s. Sitting in the back porch of my sorority surrounded by close friends and my sister was so special. Some of my friends also have summer birthdays, and I’m looking forward to celebrating (for once) with them at Dartmouth. I’m also so happy to have been able to show New Hampshire and its outdoors to my sister, who marveled at its beauty.
I've been reflecting on the lovely past four years of my life, and I came up with this list of seven things to help you succeed and thrive at Dartmouth.
A lot of people are curious about how Dartmouth's location affects social life, but something else that I've come to realize is that because of Dartmouth's location, we have some really cool academic perks.
After talking with our new improv president for a while, we decided that we would do a Zoom show. Not only does performing allow me to share my comedy with my friends, it is just, in general, a great time!
It took a couple weeks, but then I arrived at the (rather obvious) conclusion that school shouldn't preclude my making pancakes or doing chores or watching Frozen II. Zoom does not render Dartmouth some unsympathetic entity.
There were also plenty of barbecues for our cravings of hamburgers and hot dogs. 
