Hi everyone! I'm Julia from Seattle, WA. This blog was very influential during my college search, so I am excited to be writing to you all now! I'm majoring in Quantitative Social Science with a concentration in Geography and minoring in French and Religion. Outside of class, you can find me in Robinson Hall participating in various Dartmouth Outing Club sub-clubs, cooking in the Sustainable Living Center, or chatting with friends while waiting for my go-to Collis Cafe smoothie order. Talk soon!
Academic Program
QSS major; Religion and French double minor
Favorite Thing Right Now
Beautiful (and free) dinners at Moosilauke Ravine Lodge!
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.
Paris and Literature and Film was the last part of my first-year writing experience. Professor Kane did a great job of bringing a variety of sources into our classroom discussions (books, movies, articles, etc.) which made the course very engaging. Plus, it was so much fun to learn about France before visiting in 25W!
Data Visualization was one of the best classes I've taken at Dartmouth so far. Professor Cooper was very engaging, and I learned that I really LOVE making data meaningful and accessible. I'm even taking Professor Cooper's Advanced Data Visualization in the winter to continue building on my skills.
Having never taken a Geography class before, I had no idea what to expect from Professor Alvarez León's course. By the end of the term, I was obsessed with all of the topics of the course. We spent the majority of the time talking about space versus place, and we constantly had fun group activities in class. Plus, I took the class with my godsister (a '28) which was a dream come true!
Evangelicalism was easily one of my favorite classes so far. Professor Balmer was an extraordinary lecturer, even providing anecdotes from his own PBS series about his book. I came into Dartmouth anxious about all of the reading that would be required for classes, and Evangelicalism quashed that fear of mine. I left the class a more confident and curious student.
After a great spring in Professor Balmer's Evangelicalism class, I decided to take a class he was offering in the summer. Religion in North America was such a joy because it connected so many themes I had explored in my other Religion classes: the spread of Christianity, the rapid growth of some North American traditions, and how all of these aspects have melded together to create the religious culture we see in our country today.
FallOn Campus and Seattle, WA
I split my time between campus and Seattle while conducting research with Professor Paul Musselwhite in the Department of History. I helped build a database that documented inventories on St. Kitt's in 1707 and, as it turns out, it is challenging to read old English in cursive!
I loved taking Climate Change and the Future of Agriculture with Professor Jonathan Winter! It was a hands-on class which was fun -- we even had a field experiment at the Life Sciences Center Greenhouse! This class really got me thinking about how to eat more sustainably (hint: the trick is to focus on legumes!).
VERY exciting news that I'm writing to you, my dear reader, from Paris! I love this blogging job because it will help me keep track of all of my memories from college and these posts will be especially important to have. Every post will include a carousel of recent photos and a bit of a written recap of what I've been up to.
I feel so lucky to be here safe and sound. I'm with the French Foreign Study Program, which runs every winter and spring to Paris. Since I've only been here for a couple days, I'll spend a bit of time here explaining some background about my experience with choosing to study abroad at Dartmouth.
Studying abroad is VERY common here! In fact, the majority of students study abroad. I think this is for a couple reasons:
First, Dartmouth has a language requirement for all students. Even if you're fluent in a second, third, fourth, fifth(!) language, you still must take a class broadly about the learning of languages (or start a new language!). For someone like me, I started in the Introductory Language Series for French since I still wasn't fluent coming out of high school. All of that to say, the best way to study a language is to live in the language and thus, many students study abroad within various language programs.
Secondly, your Dartmouth education travels with you on virtually all study abroad programs (this just excludes exchange programs because they are, well, exchanges). What I mean by this is that students get to travel in a cohort including a professor. For this FSP, we take one class with a Dartmouth professor and two with professors who live in Paris full-time. I feel really lucky that I know that I am receiving an education abroad that is equivalent to the quality of education I receive in Hanover.
Third, your financial aid travels with you on all programs! This means that students aren't limited by cost.
For all of these reasons, I chose to apply to this study abroad. Quantitative Social Science, my major program, doesn't yet(!) have a study abroad opportunity so I chose to pursue French since I've always wanted to be fluent in a second language. The application process was easy and I felt so happy when I opened my email to see that I was accepted! I truly feel so grateful for the opportunity.
That's it for this post! I'm excited to check in with you all again soon.
This past Friday, my French program stepped beyond the classroom and into history itself with a day trip to Montauban and Moissac, where art, architecture, and place came together through hands-on learning.
