Welcome to the woods! My name is Matt Catrambone and I'm super excited to be joining the People, Places, Pines team as a new blogger. As of now, I am majoring in biology and quantitative social science (QSS), but who knows where I will end up! I will be sharing my journey as I try out classes, activities and research opportunities in various departments. Outside of the classroom, I like to listen to music, hike, ski and explore the surrounding area with my friends. Nice to meet you all!
Coming in with very little programming experience, I was pleasantly surprised by the beginner-friendly nature of this course. Although a very fast-paced course, CS1 gave me the academic confidence I needed my freshman fall. I was able to code games, maps and drawings all in 10 weeks, always surrounded by help from Vasanta (our lovely professor) and over 20 teaching assistants. I also made some close friends through the course, so I would highly, highly recommend it to anyone.
This has been my favorite class at Dartmouth thus far. Co-taught by a married couple, the introductory course fostered a challenging, yet welcoming environment for mainly first-year students. After learning about basics in epidemiology, immunology, microbiology and statistics, we dedicated entire lectures to specifically learn about over ten infectious diseases. I particularly enjoyed understanding treatment methods (vaccine, drug discovery, prevention) from both the scientific and epidemiological points-of-view, and the connections we made to current events. Now, I can confidently contribute to conversations about topics I used to be intimidated of.
A field that is often dominated by buzzwords and fear-mongering headlines, global health is a fascinating field that I was initially hesitant to engage with. And I'm so happy I did. Anne Sosin as a lovely professor who prioritized engagement and curiosity. Through weekly discussion posts, diverse sets of readings, three papers and a case study, we were able to explore four large areas of global health in conjunction with our interests. I focused on how rural health inequities connect to structural violence, colonialism, and biomedicine/technology advances. I was definitely one of the younger, less experienced students in the course, but the support was so accessible that I recommend this course to anyone interested!
Hi everyone! I wanted to use this week's post to provide an update on some extracurriculars I'm involved in. The Foundations program has been one of my favorite and most time-consuming involvements thus far and has been influential in solidifying my interest in public health and social impact work. I highly recommend it to all future students as it provided me with consistency and community during my first few terms at Dartmouth.
At first, I was very apprehensive about joining the program. I thought it would be too much of a time commitment as I balanced the academic and social transitions of college life. The content very much interested me–I love working directly with people in my community and enjoy the data analysis/research parts of consulting projects. I ended up taking the risk and going for it ... and it ended up working out! There was a written application and a low-stakes group interview, so the application process wasn't too intimidating.
The program formally starts in the winter and involves weekly seminar-like sessions on Wednesday nights. We first engaged with social impact theory, learned best practices through case studies, and developed skills from partners within the Dartmouth community. The pace was a little slower than it is now, but I appreciated how each session engaged a different part of my brain, allowing me to call on and contextualize a lot of my previous experiences with community engagement, even if I didn't realize I was engaging with the community. A few of my favorite sessions included a trip to the Social Impact game lab, reading through archives on Dartmouth's co-educational transition, and a networking event with the Tuck School of Business. We also went on a weekend retreat, exploring the different social services and community institutions in a nearby town, Lebanon.
Once the spring term started, so did our consulting project. We received a brief from DCSI with project details, contacts, and background information, but most of the research and proposal of solutions were to be done on our own. My group of 5 is specifically working with the Public Health Council of the Upper Valley and HAVEN to increase inter-food pantry communication, networking, and resource/data sharing for pantries along the Connecticut River. I was initially overwhelmed and a little pessimistic about the scope of the project - how are we supposed to get this all done in 10 weeks? However, I quickly realized how efficient dividing and conquering can be. Some of us worked on the literature review while some focused on outreach with clients, administrative folks, and community members. We convened each week for a one-hour "team" meeting and then a one-hour workshop/seminar session with our advisors, Tori and Evan. I'm happy to report that we've made great progress on the project. After consulting many community partners and adjusting our approach according to feedback from all parties involved, we are now working on our final deliverables. First, we are making a slide deck that presents our research, analysis of the problem, approach adjustments, and proposed solutions. Our deliverables include a Facebook group "hub" with different forms of messaging and levels of access so pantries can have intra and intercommunication. We also attached a Google form that is linked to an automatically-updated, comprehensive Google Sheet that is a central location for pantries to offer or request assistance in specific categories. We also are currently designing a way for the community members to offer input for the sustainability and longevity of our solutions.
I'm excited to share the final product with you guys and can't wait to let you know how our final presentation goes next week!
In addition to blogging, I work as a Fellow for the Tucker Center, which focuses on promoting spiritual and ethical life on campus. As part of this role, I'm leading the Interfaith Alternative Spring Break Trip. Read on to learn more about my work!
