Julia Cappio

People, Places, Eating at Pine (Round One)

If there's anything I learned on my tour of Dartmouth, it was that students have the unique opportunity to bring a professor to lunch once a term. The program came up time and time again while walking around campus. By the conclusion of the tour, I was intrigued. Do we really get to eat a fancy meal? What will the professor think? Can I bring my friends? I had to see for myself.

Initially, I wasn't sure who to bring to lunch. I wanted to know more about all of my professors, but I could only pick one. Because I couldn't decide given the dynamics of the teachers, I made my decision based on the dynamics of the class, not the dynamics of the teacher.

One professor and up to three students can go to lunch together. For my first rodeo, I wanted to have a friend or two accompany me so the meal would feel less intimidating. My French class is like one big family, so it wasn't going to work to only have four of us go to a meal. I have a friend or two in my Quantitative Social Science class, but nobody that immediately popped into my head. So, I decided on my Religion professors: I had two friends that I sat with every day and all of us wanted to learn more about our professor.

The first step to taking your professor to lunch is making a simple ask. I stressed myself out over this step for no reason: who doesn't want a free lunch?! He said yes, and we were on our way. Shortly thereafter, we found a time and date that worked for everyone.

The next step is to fill out an online form from the College. This is how you get your meal voucher. Every person in the party gets 30 dollars, 5 of which are reserved for tips. My friend Rachel filled out this form for all of us. At the same time, I made a reservation at the restaurant. We got to eat at Pine in the Hanover Inn. You can also choose to go to The Class of 1953 Commons, but every student I know has chosen Pine (the food is SO good). It's also really nice to get a break from dining hall food every once in a while.

Finally, it was time to eat! The time that worked best for everyone was right after one of our classes, so class material was still looming in my head. But while we talked some about religion, we spent much longer talking about our personal lives. My professor is at Dartmouth in a visiting capacity and this is his last term for a while. We talked about that life change, our families, and so much more. To be honest, it was really nice to have such a deep, eloquent conversation. Being constantly surrounded by other kids my age means that we spend most of our time talking about minute issues like the pizza at FoCo being cold or who likes who in our class. Having a chance to dig deeper with my professor and some of my closest friends brought me back in touch with a level of humanity that can be forgotten in day-to-day college life.

I am so grateful to have had the opportunity to take my Religion professor to lunch. I feel bad cutting off my thoughts here, but I want to expand on them later when I have more experiences with this program in future terms. For now, goodbye! Have a great rest of your week.