Hello, and welcome to my corner of the woods! I'm Lauren, a '27 from Munger, Michigan. On campus, I enjoy writing sports for The Dartmouth, going on as many DOC trips as I can, and hanging out with my friends. I also love Woccoming, doing the daily NYT mini crossword, and paddling!
I took this class as part of Dartmouth's first year writing requirement. We read a pro cyclist's life narrative, discussed research papers on controversial topics in sports, and wrote our own papers on a contentious sports technology of our choice. I really enjoyed this course's emphasis on discussion, and the small class size!
This was my first class in the classics department, which was super exciting as a classical studies major! We learned about the ancient Olympics and the connections between athletics and other aspects of ancient Greek society. I loved the final project in this class, which involved creating an argument about how the ancient pentathlon was scored!
To conclude my language requirement, I took Latin 3! This class was super exciting because we began to read ancient texts and poetry. We also took a class trip to the Rauner Special Collections library so we could physically handle and read some manuscripts. And as an added bonus, Latin counts as a prerequisite for my classical studies major!
As a part of my language study abroad in Italy, I also took a class on Italian history and culture! We went on field trips to the Colosseum and the Roman Forum, participated in walking tours of Rome, and watched a lot of great cinema in this class! I loved it so much that I decided to minor in Italian.
This class, in addition to being a pre-requisite for both my major and my spring study abroad, was super interesting! I loved learning about archaeology in a chronological sequence, and I feel so much more prepared for my trip to Greece after completing this class.
If you're anything like me, you love going on little adventures and getting to know the space you're living in better. At the end of last term, I did just that, and ended up stumbling across a space in the basement of Collis Center for Student Involvement that I've grown extremely fond of: 8-Ball Hall!
This room is home to a few fun activities for students, including a Skee-Ball machine, a foosball table, a giant version of Connect 4, and three pool tables. As last term drew to a close and studying for finals ramped up, it was the perfect place to let off some steam with my friends! The atmosphere in 8-Ball Hall is laid-back, with a sound system that students can connect to and a constant buzz of laughter and chatter. A few tables line the edges of the room, and there's a sort of "living room" corner with a TV and couches too. I had never played pool before, but my friend was a patient teacher and caught me up on all of the rules. My performance was awful—I think I only hit one ball in the pocket the entire time. But as I've mentioned before, I love trying new things, even if I'm bad at them. My philosophy is that stepping outside of your comfort zone is important for letting yourself grow, especially during this period of my life.
I ended up going back to 8-Ball Hall the very next day with a different friend, and we had a fun time too! We made a sort of competition out of the games in the room, keeping track of who won each and totaling up all of our points at the end of the night. Since then, we've repeated this a few times, and it's been a great new way to hang out.
During my time at Dartmouth so far, I've tried to take advantage of every resource available to me and make the most of my time here. One of my classmates recently pointed out that we're nearly done with our freshman year, which made me want to make every moment count. I learned a lot about myself and what I want the rest of my college experience to look like last term, a topic that I keep exploring every day. As I begin to take more courses in preparation for declaring my major, step into leadership positions in my favorite clubs, and get closer to a few of my friends, I am more confident every day that I made that choosing Dartmouth was the right decision for me.
It's truly the little things that make this place so special—late nights spent learning how to play pool in an often-forgotten corner of campus while listening to Noah Kahan blast over the speakers. I can't wait to go on more mini adventures this term (and get back outside), and I'll be sure to blog about them as they come along!
