First, I'll explain who I am. I'm Nicholas Sugiarto, a '23 from San Diego, California. Second, a quick disclaimer. I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing. Prior to Dartmouth, I've never hiked, skied, or seen snow. So yeah, you could say that Dartmouth is quite a bit different from what I'm used to. You'll probably find me on campus lost. I have no sense of direction. Please help.
A class studying how Christian language has permeated into how we as a society talk about economics. I have virtually no interest in either field as a major, nor am I really religious, but the class is super fun! It challenges you to think in ways that aren't outstandingly obvious, but get more and more interesting if you're willing to put the time in to thinking about them. It's by no means your traditional class. At least in the high school I came from, the idea of dedicating an entire term to a topic as niche as this is unheard of. But honestly? That just makes it so much more fulfilling. Like most Dartmouth classes, there's a ton of freedom to explore topics that interest you. For my final term paper, since I'm a huge hip hop fan, I wrote about the religious and economic underpinnings of Kendrick Lamar's "How Much a Dollar Cost." Without diving too deep into the jargon, I argued that money according to Kendrick Lamar, is defined by Western capitalism heavily intertwined with American Prosperity Gospel; its true nature, on the other hand, is a form of spiritual exchange. I loved this class so much that I was able to take my professor out to breakfast (on Dartmouth's dime, of course. Quick college lesson, never, ever pay for food. Live life Aladdin style.).
For those that don't know, Writing 5 is a class that's mandated for all Freshman. It helps you adjust to college writing, research, all that good stuff. There's a ton of topics to choose from, ranging from the criminal justice system to how food affects your mind. I personally chose "Pursuit of Happiness" because, well, who doesn't want to be happy? This class was my first intro to what the Dartmouth academic experience is really about. It was a small class of only 16 strong where classes were discussion-based and the professor's door is always open. It goes without saying that the course was immensely interesting (is there really a way to make happiness boring?), and we studied a vast majority of topics from Aristotle to Voltaire to Biochemical research studies. I tell incoming students all the time that if you want to make the most of your Dartmouth experience, take classes that interest you and make what you do with those classes interesting too. There's nothing more painful than having to write a paper on a topic you find absolutely mind-numbingly dull. Given my fascination with stand up comedy, I focused on viewing comedy as a form of happiness, starting from comedy in relation to Camus's absurd, the higher prevalence of mental illness in comedians, and what kind of comedians deserve happiness. Honestly? Even though this class was technically "mandatory," I would have taken it regardless.
This is the class I'm currently taking, and it's by far my favorite. You couldn't tell by my posts, or my favorite classes I listed earlier, but I'm actually a huge STEM guy. I'm a biomedical engineering major for a reason, and Dartmouth classes really make STEM fun. They're also so easy a child could follow them. Literally. I'm using the computer science 1 curriculum to teach my little sister coding. At a slower pace of course. She's not THAT smart (yet). I've never tried coding before, but the task-based approach of the CS department really makes things interesting. So far, we've drawn a children's book/ logo, a chalkboard drawing (I drew the Kanye bear), and a retro pong game. There's something fun about solving puzzles for a grade, and even though the course is admittedly pretty challenging at times, it's so worth it.
Earlier, I talked about doing research for the first time. You can read about that here. And while I'm still doing that, there is one thing I didn't mention. I'm working more than one research position at once. Yeah.
Before I explain why, just know that it really wasn't intentional. Finding research positions at Dartmouth is surprisingly easy. Turns out that there's an entire database dedicated solely to helping undergraduates find research positions. It's a massive database, containing projects for every field of study ranging from anthropology to chemistry to film and media to Japanese studies, etc. I wanted to start slow, and try out one research position at first.
So about 2 months or so ago I started to look for jobs based on this database. And, not wanting to overcommit myself and have to awkwardly explain to professors that I had to turn down their labs because I got a better job offer from their colleague, I only applied to two research positions that really interested me.
How was I to know that both professors would get back to me in the same week?
And so now I'm working on two research projects concurrently, and I have to say I'm loving them both. Now, both of them are really tech-y (which makes sense, because with coronavirus much of what you can do remotely is coding and data analysis), I've talked about the first one, bioinformatics aiding with cancer research, but this week I want to talk about the second. Mobile mental health.
To be honest with you, mental health has started to become much more important to me since I came to Dartmouth. And not because of Dartmouth itself. Quite the contrary. Being at Dartmouth has helped me realize that the environment I came from wasn't really conducive or healthy for me. And taking advantage of the medical resources here has helped me become a better, healthier person for it. But not everyone has access to Dartmouth-level resources. So that's why when I read the project description for mobile mental health, well, I really wanted to be part of it.
But here's the thing. I don't as of right now have the technical skills to be part of it. The research position was completely coding. In fact, it was a new coding language that was just developed in the past 10 years (which is really young for a coding language), and so it was highly recommended that you strongly grasped the principles of coding to make the learning curve easier. But as someone who took half the sequence of an introductory computer science course, well, it'd be a stretch to say that I have.
But the thing is, as soon as I told my PI that, all he said was "it's okay, you're a Dartmouth student. I have complete faith in your ability to work hard and figure it out."
And I can say that after just a week working in the lab, and having finished my first project and am on to my next, well, I hope he's right.
Because here's the thing. I'm not doing high level work. I admit that. But there's something comforting about the fact that just being a part of the Dartmouth name is in itself a sign of faith in my abilities for others to see, but also for myself. Speaking candidly, a lot of students at Dartmouth struggle as to whether they deserve to be here. But even if we can't see that for ourselves, just the fact that we are here is enough for professors to give us (technically) paid jobs? Even if we tell them to their face that we're not qualified? Well, hopefully things just start to speak for themselves.
Dartmouth changed my life. A large part of that change comes from the support I have received from professors. Learn more here about some mentor-mentee relationships I have made!
Exploring Chicago with my fellow women engineers from Dartmouth! We explored the city outside of the SWE conference and got to see how exciting Chicago can be.
