I'm Kalina, a '27 from Sofia, Bulgaria. I love books (I love reading and writing them), and I particularly love fantasy (i.e. I'm an expert on Middle Earth and Hogwarts studies). I love all branches of science, from particle physics to neuroscience, and I'm also steadily falling in love with journalism and telling real stories about real people, for once. I also love hiking, bird-watching, climbing, and em dashes.
Instead of taking a normal Writing 5 course, I decided to fulfill my first-year writing requirement by taking HUM 1. This course helped me strengthen my relationship to literature and writing. It changed the way in which I thought about classics, both books and movies (we saw Wall-E, by the way). And it also changed the way I thought about academic writing and literary criticism. A third of the course was made up of lectures by professors from different departments, while the other two thirds were discussions with a single professor and a small group of 15 students.
Intro to Neuroscience was the first course I was truly excited about. It wasn't an easy course; we had a weekly quiz of ten to thirteen questions covering the lectures from the past few days, but it was very interesting and also very funny (Professor Winter's humor is legendary). We learned about the human brain at the level of individual cells. We also studied it at the level of different systems, from the olfactory system to the parasympathetic nervous system. And last, we learned about cognition: learning, attention, language. We saw a real human brain with formaldehyde dripping from it. We saw a real sheep's brain. And a rat's brain. And we pocked each other with paper clips to determine the sensitivity of our touch receptors.
Last Sunday, I left my dorm with a legal pad, a second legal pad (just in case), a notebook, several pens, and two phones with full battery in my bag (for recording). I was more than prepared to interview Dartmouth alumna Elise Tillinghast and properly report her story, as a true journalism student. After leaving my dorm, I crossed the Green, and waited in front of Hanover Inn for my journalism professor to pick me up. I don't have a car on campus, but I needed a to somehow reach Elise's home, and my journalism professor kindly proposed to drive me.
Professor Jetter, who picked me up from Hanover that Sunday and drove to town where my interviewee lives, has taught the class ENGL 6, Journalism, for more than twenty years (I think). One of the most memorable assignments that she has assigned to many students over the years is to find someone over thirty and interview them in their home: in other words, get to know that person as well as possible and write a profile of them.
A few weeks into the spring term, I went to Professor Jetter's office hours, so we could discuss potential people for me to interview. Before we started talking about school work, however, she asked me about my interests and my ambitions. Soon enough the words writing, bird-watching and nature bubbled to the surface of our conversation, and Professor Jetter immediately thought of someone whose interests uncannily-well align with mine: Elise.
That's how I found myself a few weeks later in my professor's car, driving up from Hanover to the town where Elise lives. After I met Elise, her two kids, her husband, and her lovely dog Pompy, Elise and I went on a two-hour walk through their woodlands. I interviewed Elise for my journalism assignment, but I also learned so much from her: not only about the natural world that surrounded us (she taught me the names of a lot of wild-flowers and little creatures we saw) but also about being a mom, finding what you want to do in life, overcoming challenges, and enjoing life.
Before coming to Dartmouth, I would have never thought that I'd be spending my college weekends going on walks with alumni, interviewing them about their lives and riding in their car with their charming dog in my lap. Well... that's what some of my Dartmouth weekends actually look like.
And one last thing: Elise also writes a blog, and just as she's featured in MY blog here, I was also featured in hers! (I spotted an eastern garter snake that she took a picture of for her nature blog. You can check it out here).
Dartmouth's proximity to nature - the White Mountains and the Connecticut River, was one of the main factors that made me apply Early Decision, but it took me three quarters before I actually went paddling on the river.
As it approaches the end of spring term and the finale to my freshman year at Dartmouth, I am reflective of the goals I made for myself each term and how I've accomplished them.
The dining halls at Dartmouth offer options for all types of people, including those with dietary requirements, foodies, and those simply seeking a quick bite to eat in between courses.
