Hey everybody! My name is Matthew, and I'm a '27 from Florida interested in majoring in Chemistry or Biology (not quite sure yet!). Outside of the classroom, I plan on being involved in Dartmouth's theatre scene and outdoor programs! In the future, I'm hoping to merge my passions for scientific discovery and teaching others by becoming a professor. I can't wait to be a part of everything Dartmouth has to offer, and I hope you enjoy coming along for the ride!
During my first term, I wanted to try something completely new—and start working on fulfilling some of the distributive requirements. Two birds with one stone, right? To accomplish this, I enrolled in the first of three introductory Chinese language courses. Taking a fun and informative class with an interesting subject matter—and a stellar professor—has made this term fantastic! I can't wait to see what's in store over the next two terms. I also have a full blog post about my first-year language experience if you're interested in learning more!
As a STEM major, I never really saw myself taking English classes while in college. However, at Dartmouth, you must take a first-year writing sequence, which can include a writing and seminar class from any department. I ended up taking the English department offering, and it was an amazing experience. I learned so much more about how storytelling works and how we can alter the presentation of a story to completely change the way it is received by an audience. I also loved the practical aspects of this class, like writing a mini-memoir story every few weeks based on a theme and getting critical feedback from my classmates. I learned a lot more about the process of storytelling, but also about myself and the way I perceive my own experiences.
This term, I ended up taking two biology classes, which is definitely a pretty big workload, but I had a great time and felt like I really lucked out with the classes I ended up in. Global Change Biology gave me the chance to learn about climate change from a biological viewpoint. We talked about a number of different climate change-related topics, and we learned about one new large climate change topic each week. This was also an R-focused class, so we spent one day a week learning new skills in the programming language and then had a fun coding assignment each week that used data we discussed in class. I felt like I learned a lot more about climate change, but I also developed a lot of R skills that are very helpful for research and other Bio classes. In combination with the ecology class I took this term, I’d say that this class helped me decide on my major once and for all!
SummerHanover, NH
I spent the summer after my first year living in an off-campus apartment in Hanover and doing full-time research in the Biology department. I also continued my work in the admissions office as a tour guide and a leader for Dartmouth Bound! It was a great summer, and if you want to learn more about my research internship, I have a blog post about it.
With spring term fast approaching (seriously, how did 24W go by so fast?), I have been figuring out my courses for next term for the past few weeks. I am now enrolled in Chinese 3, Bio 16 (the foundational Ecology class), and Bio 26 (Global Change Biology) for the spring term. This blog post will be a reflection on course selection at Dartmouth and the resources available when picking classes. Here's how it works:
Step 1: Research
Course selection begins by burrowing through the massive Dartmouth course catalog. There are a lot of choices, so narrowing down by subject area and which prerequisites are required helps make the choice easier. Every student has an assigned advisor and undergraduate dean who can help you decide between courses when you're stuck. I've gone to my dean's office hours several times to help sort out my courses, understand prerequisite requirements, and even assess the difficulty of my course load for future terms. It's always a lot of help, and getting to know my dean and advisor has been a lot of fun.
Step 2: Initial Course Selection
Unlike other schools, Dartmouth doesn't (initially) make you scramble onto a website at a set time to fight over course slots with your peers. First, you are given a week to choose your top three courses for the term. Then, through a part-lottery, part-graduation requirements, part-mysterious-administration-magic-based process, you are placed into some or all of your courses. If you are like me for the past two terms, you get all three courses, and your journey stops here. For spring, however, I only got two of my courses (maybe next year, Soil Ecology), and it was time to move on to Step 3.
Step 3: Course Selection Part II
To fill up your remaining course slots, you engage in a course selection process like other schools. The morning after initial schedules come out, you wake up early and rush to the election website, joining whichever backup courses still have slots open. Many people will also email professors trying to get into their initial courses to see if they can expand the class by a few slots or add them to the waitlist.
Step 4: Add-Drop
Finally, at the beginning of the term comes the add-drop period. For the first week, your schedule remains open, and you can drop out of classes that you aren't enjoying or add additional courses with open slots to your schedule. People use add-drop for lots of reasons. Don't like the first impressions of one of your classes? Drop it! Find out that someone else has done the same for a class you really want to take? Add yourself to it! Add-drop gives students lots of flexibility to switch around their schedule to find the best match for them every term and gives an extra chance to get into full classes that you're really interested in.
And that's it! Although my course selection journey for this term involved a lot more research and a few more tough decisions than last term, I'm so happy with my current schedule and can't wait to see where spring term takes me!
Academics can be challenging at Dartmouth. But there are lots of groups across campus here to support you through your academic journey. Read on for my experience asking for help and a few organizations that might be helpful to you!
Every Dartmouth student is required to demonstrate proficiency in a language other than English. Here's my experience navigating the language requirement!
