Hi everyone! I'm Julia from Seattle, WA. Reading this blog during my junior and senior years of high school helped me to envision myself on this campus, so this all feels very full-circle. I'm studying QSS and I'm looking forward to taking my French skills abroad next year in Toulouse and Paris. I love cooking/food, watching old Modern Family episodes (my favorite character is Mitch), and finding cozy places to study on campus (preferably in my PJ's). Talk to you soon!
This class served as a great introduction to the Quantitative Social Science department. My favorite part of class was working with real-world data in our problem sets each week. I also adored my professor, Elsa Voytas. It was her first term as a professor here, and she was constantly eager to answer any questions you might have. I'm really looking forward to taking more QSS classes in the future!
I loved this class and especially my professor, Michele Tine. My favorite part of the course was watching the "Up!" documentary series as a class. The episodes began with a cohort of children at age 7, and has continued to follow them throughout their adulthood. We got to analyze the children's decisions and lifestyles in the context of what we were learning about, culminating with a paper highlighting one of the cohort members.
Despite it being a Sunday, I woke up bright and early to see whether ski instructor training was cancelled. My supervisor told us that he would know if the bus could make it through the snow by 7:00, so I assumed we were still on since I didn't see a new email in my inbox. Wearily, I went back to sleep for an hour.
7:45 a.m.
To my surprise, I saw a text from my friend that training was cancelled! Despite loving my training on Saturday, I was happy to have the chance to sleep in. I needed it after a hectic first few days back on campus (I only got here 5 days ago!). I drifted back to sleep after watching a couple minutes of a series for my Education class.
11:30 a.m.
Time to get up for real! I texted my friend, Clara, at the gym to see whether she wanted to come over to my dorm so we could walk to the dining hall together. Once we chatted for a while on my floor, we bundled up to venture over to the Green.
12:30 p.m.
After parting ways with Clara so she could take a nap, I met up with two friends at Foco (The Class of 1953 Commons, our food hall). I ate a delicious lunch of BBQ chicken, Spanish rice, and roasted carrots accompanied by a brand-new type of chocolate(?!) coffee. I secretly love it when Foco goes all out for little things like boujee coffee.
1:00 p.m.
I headed to the library to get some work done. Since I thought that I would be in training all day, I had already finished my homework for the weekend. Trying to be more proactive in 2024, I decided to work ahead on some tasks like finishing my study abroad applications and batching some blog posts.
My view from the Tower Room while working.
4:00 p.m.
I head over to Foco for a quick snack. It was my first time trying Foco fries and I thought they were pretty good! I even added some buffalo spices from the seasoning station which made them extra delicious. I wrapped up my snack with a sweet treat of a Granny Smith apple with Nutella.
5:00 p.m.
Time to head back to the library! I kept working on my blog posts and continued watching some of my Education series. At this point in the day, I was keeping my eyes peeled for an email from Dr. Seuss…*
7:00 p.m.
I packed up my work for the night and headed to a blogger dinner and meeting in McNutt Hall (the Admissions building, among other things). As bloggers, we said goodbye to Kevin Donohue as our boss (sad) and hello to new admissions officer Will Kieger (happy)! After eating some pizza and meeting more of my fellow colleagues – we don't spend a lot of time together in-person! – I decided to go watch some football in Collis, our student center.
9:45 p.m.
After watching some of the Bills game with my friend, I decided that it was time for me to go to bed without a word of the snowball fight. I bundled back up and walked through the snow; a more peaceful night than expected, but wonderful nonetheless.
11:00 p.m.
On the verge of falling asleep, I checked my email one last time. To my surprise, Theodore Giesel popped into my inbox. I got out of bed, changed into warmer clothes, and headed out for the best night of the year.
The only photo I got during or after the snowball fight. It was epic, to say the least.
It's easy to forget how easy it is to access walking trails during the hustle of a Dartmouth term. As graduation nears, I am reminded of how special it is to step off campus and enjoy quiet moments in nature.
With a solar eclipse sweeping across North America for the first time in nearly seven years on April 8th came a road-trip with hundreds of other Dartmouth students to a zone of totality near campus: St. Johnsbury, Vermont!
