snow Dartmouth

Jenny Chen

Class of 2021
Jenny with crossed arms

Bio 

Hello! My name is Jenny and I'm a senior at Dartmouth studying biology and quantitative social science. On campus, I also work as a communications intern for the Admissions Office, teach piano to elementary school students through Musical Empowerment, and mentor freshmen in the Great Issues Scholars LLC. My hobbies include reading, attempting to finish crossword puzzles, and embroidering, which I only recently picked up. Welcome to my blog!

Academic Program 

Biology and Quantitative Social Science

Favorite Thing Right Now 

Big scarves

Hometown 

Bethesda, Maryland

Pronouns 

She/Her

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Jenny's D-Plan

What's a D-Plan?

    • FallOn Campus

      Favorite Class: Sociology 001

      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.

    • WinterOn Campus

      Favorite Class: Biology 013

      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.

    • SpringOn Campus

      Favorite Class: The Body: The Nude in Western Visual Art

      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.

    • FallOn Campus

      Favorite Class: Organic Chemistry

      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.

    • WinterOn Campus

      Favorite Class: Introduction to Cultural Anthropology

      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.

    • SpringOn Campus

      Favorite Class: Introduction to Programming and Computation

      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.

    • SummerOn Campus

      Favorite Class: Sex, Gender, and Society

      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!

    • FallOn Campus

      Favorite Class: Sports Analytics

      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!

    • SpringOff Campus

      I was planning to study in Rome for the term and practice my basic Italian skills, but unfortunately the program was canceled. Instead of taking classes, I decided to continue working at my winter internship at NIH. Some of the research I conducted involved analyzing data on excess mortality as a method of estimating the true burden of COVID-19.

    • SummerOff Campus

      I continued my research at Fogarty while also working part-time as a Learning Fellow for BIOL13 (Gene Expression and Inheritance), a job I also did my sophomore summer. It was great to see some familiar faces and help with transitioning this very interactive class into something Zoom-friendly!

    • FallOn Campus

      Favorite Class: Design Thinking

      I had heard about this class long before taking it my senior fall, as it's one of those quintessential Dartmouth classes. We had a total of six projects over ten weeks, many of which were group projects. They included everything from building rollercoasters, creating Photoshop posters to combat harmful misconceptions, and designing prototypes to improve student dorm life. I learned so much about what it means to design ethically and purposefully, and will definitely carry these lessons forward with me in my future endeavors.

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Two Weeks of Summer Break?

Like the majority of my class, I am now back on campus for sophomore summer, with a new room, new classes, but the same old classmates (fellow '21s). Here are a few things I did over my “summer break” before returning for school, and one thing I wished I had done: 

  1. No. 1

    Let's Go to the Beach

    beach

    The only real trip I went on was to Sandy Point Beach for a day with my family. Besides sunbathing and watching my new-fangled guilty pleasure (Love Island), I started a book by Margaret Atwood, Alias Grace. I bought it last term after her public talk and did not have the time to open it until I got home for break. I’m still working on it – it’s a fascinating novel based on a true story, but rather different from The Handmaid’s Tale.

  2. No. 2

    Homemade Smoothies

    smoothies

    Missing Collis smoothies had me making my own smoothies at home! Collis smoothies are one of my favorite Dartmouth Dining Service (DDS) snacks/drinks because you can personalize them and select from different fruits, juices, milk, and even protein or chia additions. This summer, the Hop dining hall is closed but luckily, Collis is still open. During the summer, usually, one or the other does not open just because there are not that many students on-campus.

  3. No. 3

    Reading

    I also read Educated by Tara Westover, a recommendation from my older sister. I couldn’t believe how captivating and intense a lot of stories from her life were and I ended up finishing the book in a few hours. I was reminded of how lucky I am to have received an education from a young age, and especially continuing to do so here at Dartmouth.

  4. No. 4

    Ah, Dreaded Planning

    The not-so-fun part involved finally beginning to apply to internships for next winter, which will be my off-term. I mostly applied to research positions at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which is very close to where I live. I hope to be conducting statistical/data analysis work on global health research. I also had to start cementing what classes I will take and when over the next two years in order to make sure that I complete my majors and distributive requirements on time.

  5. No. 5

    Strips

    Finally, one thing that I did not do but wish I had was Strips, aka sophomore trips! Just like First-Year Trips, Strips brings small groups of students together on outdoor activities for a few days. I have friends who did canoeing, mountain biking, and cabin camping. All of them really enjoyed their time and a few even said it was better than First-Year Trips. I wish I had signed up, but it had just escaped my mind and at the same time, I had really appreciated the last few days of the break at home because that’s when my siblings had finished school and we could spend a lot of time together. 

Posted 08/4/2019 at 12:30 PMAll List Posts

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