Hi there!! My name is Martin, and I'm thrilled to be a '27 blogger for People Places Pines! A small rural town in Maine called Veazie is where I call home, and I can't wait to tell you about what life at Dartmouth is like! 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!
Random Adventures in DALI, Soccer, and Podcasts at Dartmouth
It's no secret that Dartmouth has a lot of activities for you to get involved in. Some require applications–but many don't! There's a plethora of things to join or try out with no background experience required. I've been exploring some of these myself in my first few weeks at Dartmouth:
Dali-Lab UI/UX Design Class
About a week ago, I received a random email inviting me to apply to "DALI's Intro to UI/UX Design Mini-Series." I was interested in learning more about it as I had no experience or background in design. So, I quickly wrote up the interest application and sent it off, and was shortly admitted! Since then, I've been spending my Wednesday and Sunday evenings learning about user "interface" (UI) and "experience" (UX) in the DALI Lab, something that I've never done before! My roommate and I actually signed up together. So far, we've been learning how to record and summarize user experience, and we've just now started learning to model and prototype different digital interfaces. See a picture from class below:
Here's a pic of my roommate Zach from our DALI design class!
South House Intramural Soccer
I played soccer all throughout high school and wanted to continue in college. However, since I'm already on the club swim team here at Dartmouth, I wanted to find another way to play that wasn't a huge time commitment. So last week, I signed up for and played in my first intramural soccer game for "South House" (my randomly assigned housing community). We played against "East Wheelock" (another housing community)–it was a great game, and we came out on top (4-2). I love it since it's not a huge time commitment (just one game every Friday night–no practices throughout the week) and I get to play some soccer while earning points for "House Cup." I'll be playing again this Friday night! For anyone who might want more soccer–there's also club soccer here at Dartmouth and other intramural leagues that you can play in!
Podcast on Dartmouth Radio Station
Last week, I was studying for midterms when one of my friends (who was also on my first-year orientation trip!) messaged me "do you want to come on my podcast in an hour?" I was a little surprised, but I agreed–and about an hour later, I was live on the Dartmouth radio station with two of my friends here at Dartmouth, discussing our favorite parts of orientation week (and mostly joking around). The podcast showed me how many random cool things students on campus are doing that I didn't even know about! I hope to be invited onto the podcast again sometime soon!
Here's a pic of my friend and I at the Dartmouth Radio Station!
Those are some random things I've been up to in the past few weeks! There is so much to do here that you don't have time to do all of it–and that's okay. Trying out any random opportunity or activity that pops up and interests you here is totally normal and encouraged!
Dartmouth is not just a college. With world-renowned graduate schools, why would we choose to call ourselves a college instead of a university? The story behind that decision dates back to a significant Supreme Court ruling.
On a quiet spring Saturday in Hanover, I traded the usual campus buzz for Monet in the morning and archery in the afternoon—a reminder that Dartmouth weekends can be just as meaningful when they're slow, reflective, and a little unexpected.
During my sophomore spring quarter, I took on the challenge of four STEM courses, and while it has been intense, the unexpected connections across subjects and the joy of learning have made it one of my most rewarding academic experiences yet.
Read about the Sophomore Summer Soiree and how I got to witness the beginning of something that hopefully grows into a long-standing Dartmouth tradition!
On the Beijing LSA+, we have real-world Chinese practice every Friday. Last week we went to two neighborhoods, Houhai and Shichahai, and wrote a photo log about our experience. Read along to see what immersive language learning here looks like!
