Welcome to my page, I am a '27 from central New Hampshire! I came to Dartmouth for the liberal arts curriculum, so I plan to explore the academic disciplines before deciding what to focus on. I am currently looking at environmental science and religion. In addition to blogging, I work as an Interfaith Trip Fellow with the Tucker Center for Spiritual and Ethical Life. I enjoy mountain biking, running, skiing, singing, and drawing.
Academic Program
Intended: pre-health, anthropology, environmental studies, and religion.
This discussion and reading-based class was incredible and relevant! Content ranged from the historical impact of the printing press to AI in the workforce and transhumanism, and all of the topics were grounded in religion and some of the frameworks religion provides. I pondered on ideas from this class all the time.
I was captivated by the first class meeting of the term reading Ovid's 'Metamorphoses' and eventually chose to focus on it for my research paper at the end of the term. All of the readings captivated my attention, however, Kafka, Han's 'The Vegetarian', and Kristeva were the authors that made the biggest impression on me. The class discussions resulted in wonderful insights relevant to humanity at a macro level. My favorite aspect was our professor instructing us to focus on the ideas before picking apart the writing style.
This class made me think about the bigger picture of health in a systems focus. Ultimately this class helped me realize that there are a lot of structural health system challenges in the U.S. and around the world. I particularly liked learning about the histories and anthropological side of things. Non-communicable diseases (NCDs) were my favorite topic in the class because the frameworks are very limited, so some do not receive enough focus and funding.
My Spanish language study abroad was wonderful. In addition to improving my Spanish proficiency, I learned a lot about the culture and history of Spain- especially in the autonomous community (region) of Cantabria where Santander is located. My favorite class on this trip was literature, every class had a different theme relevant to the history and culture of Spain and this was explored with movies, videos, and readings that resulted in some great insights during class discussion. The homestay aspect and excursions bolstered the conversational and cultural aspects of the LSA.
This class sits at the center of the two interests that I have chosen for my modified major, anthropology and environmental studies. There are a few reasons I love this class. First and foremost, there is a SIP fieldwork aspect to it (I wrote a post about this!) which means I can experience local communities and have a tangible impact. Next, my professor has a wonderful design for the content and structure of the class. Also, I am genuinely excited to learn about the content and perspective this course utilizes by considering the many dimensions of disaster. I particularly like exploring the historical factors that turn a scenario into a disaster, and how that can be prevented.
There were a number of factors that played into trying to balance my schedule while on my Spanish program in Santander, Spain, and ultimately I learned that personally I needed to have somewhat fluid expectations of managing my time in this setting.
Oursmall excursionswere scheduled once or twice a week and were mandatory, these excursions were things such as going to art museums or other relevant locations for our art history class and visiting an aquarium/museum just as part of the general program experience. These small excursions were distinct in comparison to our weekly excursions which took place on Fridays, and there were two that were multiple days, which generally were 12-hour, very involved experiences. In contrast, the short excursions during the week were a nice little bit of extra content that was not too taxing on my schedule.
This is from a building that functions as a museum for the Cantabria ocean and an aquarium in Santander.
This is the museum section of the building.
Of course, classesare always a huge factor when thinking about balancing your time in a university experience. in the case of this program, we had four classes and each class took up four hours a week for direct class time. We had eight two-hour blocks, with conversation and art on Monday and Wednesdays, and grammar and literature on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Beyond this there was certainly a decent amount of homeworkas well as preparations for exams and projects which certainly took up a significant amount of time. As a distinction from most on campus programs at Dartmouth, our professors were certainly aware of our commitments with the excursions and the reality of speaking a non-native language, so there was a little bit more understanding in terms of workload and extensions from time to time.
Cantabria Region Insignia at a Museum of History and Archaeology
Living in a homestayand having conversations over dinner and being part of the regular living life certainly had me a little more involved in comparison to dorm life. Especially being a vegetarian, I had conversations with my host mother about what to eat and everyday things. We also regularly talked about the topics from my literature class which are very relevant to the culture in Spain and I wanted to hear her thoughts about them.
This is a bomb shelter in Santander that we visited for art class, it is from the Spanish Civil War.
A display of a bomb shell in the bomb shelter in Santander.
Now, what is an international experience without some fun and social time?! Some of my free time was just checking out the city and doing things on my own. Another part of my time was doing things with my host mother. Another option was activities with one of our program coordinators that varied each week, such as going to the beach or movies, and was something I took advantage of sometimes but I did balance it with getting my work done and taking care of my health (sleep and exercise!).
Menendez Pelayo Library is in the center of Santander and right next to the art museum.
One of my favorite works from an art class trip in Santander.
