Hi there!! My name is Martin, and I'm from a small town in Maine called Veazie. I'm thrilled to be a '27 blogger for People Places Pines! Carving the slopes in the winter, hiking through woods in autumn, or basking in the Green in spring and summer, that's where you'll find me! Stay tuned for everything Big Green!
In this course, we covered all the basics of ecology: how organisms interact with each other and with their ecosystems. My favorite parts of the class were the labs: they took place outside and we explored ecological concepts around campus!
This course was on everything energy: how we use it, how we generate it, and how we can improve our current energy systems in light of climate change. We visited nearby energy systems, including Dartmouth's very own heating and energy facilities. This course was awesome!
This was a project-based class where we chose an important issue and then designed a solution, using the principles and methods we learned in class. My group made a smart trash can to make recycling easier!
A new course at Dartmouth, this class paired us with a community partner in the Upper Valley area, and we helped them develop and implement a real-world climate resilience project! In my case, that was modeling flood risk and potential solutions for a local business.
Sophomore summer! This course covered the basics of materials science, from quantum mechanics to the strength and performance of real-world materials. In also included a term-long project, where my group cast aluminum-silicon alloys and tested their properties.
Consisting of three geoscience-focused classes, "The Stretch" is Dartmouth's Earth Sciences study abroad program traversing from Banff, Canada to the Grand Canyon, Arizona. It was an amazing experience!
One of the most common things I hear from students is this:
"I want to study engineering at Dartmouth… but does that mean I can't study abroad?"
At many universities, STEM students might feel split between the choice of studying abroad or graduating on time. Engineering programs are often so rigid that it's difficult to leave campus at all without delaying graduation.
However, at Dartmouth, things work a little bit differently. Truth be told, it's pretty easy to study abroad as an engineering student here, and I can attest having done it twice! In order to understand your study abroad options as an engineering student at Dartmouth, you'll need to understand the two different types of study programs you can participate in with our special quarter system.
The quarter system, consisting of a fall, winter, spring, and (sophomore) summer quarter, feels a bit like trimesters when compared to a regular semester schedule. A standard year at Dartmouth consists of the fall, winter, and spring terms (with summer off). The study programs you can take part in as an engineering student look like one of two types:
LSAs and LSA+'s:
These are programs that are run directly by Dartmouth. Dartmouth professors teach the courses, you take classes with other Dartmouth students, and courses count automatically for Dartmouth credit. These programs are built around a specific academic department, often including excursions, field trips, and cultural activities. You're basically taking a mini Dartmouth term in another country studying something specific. Many engineering students opt to participate in an LSA or LSA+'s (language programs). In these, you'll spend your term studying another language, and you can do this in order to satisfy Dartmouth's language requirement. However, you won't be taking engineering courses explicitly.
Engineering Foreign Study Program (FSP): Berlin
Dartmouth also runs Foreign Study Programs (FSPs) connected to specific academic departments. The one offered for engineers is the Engineering FSP in Berlin, also called the Green City program. This program focuses on sustainable engineering and urban sustainability in Berlin, one of Europe's most innovative cities for environmental technology. Here, you'll take courses focused on sustainability and engineering systems. These courses are taught by Dartmouth engineering faculty, meaning students earn Dartmouth credit toward their engineering degree, the same as they would if taking those courses on Dartmouth's campus–except, you're in Berlin!
2. Exchange programs with partner universities:
In addition to Dartmouth-run programs like LSAs and FSPs, Dartmouth also offers engineering exchange programs with universities around the world. Unlike an FSP (ex. the Berlin Green City program), where Dartmouth professors teach classes abroad, exchange programs allow you to enroll directly at another university. Then, for a semester you essentially become a full student at that university while transferring credits for courses you take back to Dartmouth. This means you'll take classes with local students, learn from international faculty, and experience engineering in a completely different academic environment (but your courses are still in English, of course).
This option is what I'm currently doing, studying at the Technical University of Denmark near Copenhagen! Read my upcoming blogs for more information on that program specifically! However, there are four total exchange programs for engineering Dartmouth offers:
Each of these universities offers a wide range of different courses, and you may pick each one for any number of reasons or interests. For example, if you're interested in sustainability and green energy, you might opt for the Technical University of Denmark program, like me! You can also consider where you'd like to be located and what you hope to learn from the local culture and languages!
A picture of me on my exchange in Copenhagen at Denmark Technical and some Dartmouth friends that came to visit!
BUT, you might be thinking, how do semester exchange programs work with Dartmouth's unique quarter (term) system? That's a great question. While you might initially think that a semester exchange program would be difficult or even impossible to "line up" with Dartmouth's quarter system, it's actually easy, and can work out better for a student than it might in a normal semester program! Here's why.
If you choose to participate in an engineering exchange program with one of Dartmouth's partner universities, you'll leave for exchange in one of two ways:
1) For one fall term:
In this case, you'll leave Dartmouth for one fall term, arriving at your exchange university to take courses before the Dartmouth fall term even starts, and ending shortly after the Dartmouth fall term ends. This is because the semester is slightly longer than one term at Dartmouth, and then you can return in time to be at Dartmouth for the winter and spring terms.
This can actually be better than a regular semester program, as Dartmouth will allow you to transfer four courses of credit in a time period of one term at Dartmouth (where you otherwise would have taken only three courses)! Most of my engineering friends do this, because it allows you to actually get ahead on your engineering degree at Dartmouth, an advantage of participating in an exchange program on Dartmouth's schedule!
2) For one winter and one spring term:
In this case, you'll leave Dartmouth just after the winter term starts for an exchange semester during the "spring" for another university, and end around the time Dartmouth's spring term ends. In other words, you trade two terms at Dartmouth for one semester of an exchange program at a partner university.
You might be wondering if this is optimal, and the truth is that most Dartmouth engineering students don't do this, and opt to go on an exchange program in fall, as it can be more time efficient. And while this is true… I am in fact doing the winter-spring option! Let me explain:
If you opt for the winter-spring exchange period, you do trade two terms at Dartmouth for one semester exchange, however, one of those terms counts as your "off" term at Dartmouth (you'll take at least one term "off" or away from campus as a result of the "on" term you'll likely take during sophomore summer), and one term of the exchange counts as your "on" term. This is exactly what I am doing, because I participated in another study program in the fall (read more about my experience on The Stretch in my other blogs). To understand more about my academic plan in engineering, read my upcoming blog on how I managed to do two study abroad programs like this at Dartmouth and stay on track to graduate from engineering in four years!
So far, I've loved my exchange at the Technical University of Denmark (DTU)!
I know that was a lot of information, so to simplify it, I've tried my best to summarize it below.
If you want to study abroad at Dartmouth as an engineering student, you absolutely can, in one of two ways:
1) Dartmouth-run programs (FSPs / LSAs / LSAs+, for example, the Berlin "Green City" program)
2) Exchange programs with partner universities (including Technical University of Denmark, University of Auckland, Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK), and Chulalongkorn University)
In other words, there's plenty of options to study abroad as an engineering student at Dartmouth, some of which can actually help you get ahead on your degree! If you have more questions, I recommend you reach out to current students or read more on the Guarini study abroad website! This website shows the full suite of study programs available at Dartmouth and can tell you everything you need to know!
True to the theme of a liberal arts education, Dartmouth requires students to take one or two classes each in several different subject matters, or distributives, in order to graduate.
This fall, I took INTS80.06: Multilateralism and US Leadership. The course was taught by visiting Professor DeLaurentis. We finished off the term with a trip to New York City to visit the UN and various UN Embassies.
Welcome back to Open Doors—your inside look at life in the Woods! This week, Sarah Getraer '26, a studio art major, showed me around her dorm room, where we discussed Dartmouth residence halls, classes, and campus life.
