Hi everyone! I'm Oscar, a '28 from Flushing, NYC. My academic interests are a mix of the arts (studio art, graphic design), the sciences (psychology, biology, sustainability), and maybe even anthropology? All of which I'm thinking of merging with a major in Cognitive Science with a focus area on Design. Outside the classroom, I'm passionate about giving back to my community, fiber arts, and em dashes. Welcome to my blog—I'm excited to explore Dartmouth together!
COSC 1 was the most challenging but rewarding class of this term. I had minimal coding experience prior to this class, but the course is manageable because of all the support available. COSC 1 is one of the largest classes offered at Dartmouth—a total of 200 students split in two sections—but there was always ample help from Professor Vasanta's classes and concept hours and the TA team's recitation and office hours. I enjoyed that assignments had creative flexibility—I recreated "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" book cover, wrote an adventure story, and made games for assignments.
I had completed my language requirement by taking CHIN 4 in my last term, but I was interested in further pursuing Chinese through CHIN 22. CHIN 22 is very similar in structure to CHIN 4—small class size, vocabulary exams, and drill sessions. I was lucky to take CHIN 22 with the Beijing Normal University's exchange professor, Professor Yin, who often adds color to lessons by explaining cultural element of China. Some interesting topics we've discussed include the effects of China's One Child Policy, transportation regulations in Beijing, and the symbolism of snow in Chinese culture.
With the development of generative artificial intelligence (AI), why learn design when ChatGPT can create it for you? CSDA 21 (Computer Science/Digital Arts 21, previously known as COSC 21) argues for the importance of human agency in design (and why AI-generated designs are flawed). Using Adobe Photoshop and After Effects, we explored a range of topics, including typography, poster design, generative AI, and motion graphics. Professor Mahoney is an incredibly supportive teacher with deep knowledge of the creative industry—make sure to go to office hours if you take the course! As CSDA 21 was my first digital arts class, I’m excited to explore the department more!
Our time on the Beijing LSA+is soon coming to an end! If you haven't seen my previous posts, I've been spending my first year summer studying Mandarin Chinese in Beijing, China. It's currently week 6—just a few days until the end of the academic portion of the trip (weeks 1-8) and the beginning of the travel portion (weeks 9-10), where we'll be visiting the cities of Xi'An and Chengdu. But before we're whisked off to see terracotta soldiers and pandas, we had a dilemma:
Our last free weekend is coming up. What should we do?
For the past few free weekends, some students took the opportunity to travel around China. From a daytrip to neighboring Tianjin, to a big group trip to Shanghai, and another student's solo trip to Guangzhou, the weekend gives the option to get outside of Beijing. Before coming on the LSA+, I didn't even know this was a possibility! I had spent all of my free weekends exploring Beijing, so I was itching to go somewhere new for our last weekend.
Enter: students from Princeton in Beijing, volcanoes, and Inner Mongolia.
The Beijing LSA+ is hosted by Beijing Normal University, which also hosted a number of other study abroad programs including Princeton in Beijing (PiB). Around week 5, a few PiB students were telling my friends and I about their weekend trip to a place with expansive grasslands, volcanoes, and deserts. This place was Inner Mongolia (内蒙古), an autonomous region in Northern China, spanning the China-Mongolia border. Just a few hours northwest from Beijing, it's a popular weekend getaway for gorgeous natural scenery and its historical significance to the Mongol Empire and Yuan Dynasty.
After consulting one of our 小老师 (drill instructors), 戴老师 (Dai Laoshi, aka Professor Dai) who happens to be from Inner Mongolia, we decided to visit Ulanqab, a smaller city known for its dormant volcano geopark and amazing grassland views. She told us about Inner Mongolian specialties, like horse riding on the grasslands, eating roasted lamb, and spending the night in a Mongolian yurt. The LSA students got pretty excited—almost everyone on the LSA wanted to go. So now we had a new challenge:
How do we get 17 students to Ulanqab?
It was my first time planning a trip to another city, and that's not even considering that everything—from booking train tickets, to figuring out food and drink—was in Chinese. Doing this alone was definitely too advanced for me. Thankfully, 戴老师 was able to connect me to a local tour guide who helped us figure out the logistics of booking a tour bus, organizing tickets, and planning accommodations.
A big challenge I faced was that the tour guide communicated exclusively in voice messages. I'd say my Chinese listening skills are proficient, but I'm the type of person that likes to watch videos with subtitles, even when I can listen to the audio. So I prefer being able to take my time reading messages and looking up unfamiliar vocabulary on the way. Needless to say, my listening skills were really tested. A ton of WeChat (the leading messaging platform in China) messages later, we decided on this itinerary:
Day 1:
Arrive in Ulanqab
Visit Wulanhada Volcano Geopark (乌兰哈达火山地质公园)
Dinner and housing at a Mongolian Yurt
Day 2:
Grassland activities: horse riding, archery, grass sledding, and buggy racing
Visit the Yellow Flower Ravine Scenic Area (黄花沟旅游景区)
Head back to Ulanqab city
Day 3:
Explore Ulanqab
Head back to Beijing
All the transportation and financial vocabulary we learned in CHIN 23 Intermediate Modern Chinese and CHIN 31 Advanced Modern Chinese really came in handy when I was learning about each scenic area, bargaining our package, and communicating arrival times. It was a really challenging experience—lots of transcribing voice messages, translating, and looking up vocabulary—but I was excited to take some of the more advanced vocabulary and grammar structures outside of the classroom.
Also, after speaking to our Program Director, 李老师 (Li Laoshi), turns out previous LSA cohorts had visited Inner Mongolia as part of the program! Each year, students on the Beijing LSA+ take a ~10 day trip to other cities within China. This year, we went to Chengdu and Xi'An, which are in major cities in southwest and central China respectively, so visiting Inner Mongolia was an interesting contrast to the major cities (Beijing, Chengdu, and Xi'An) that were planned by the LSA+ faculty.
Planning a trip in Chinese seemed like a massive, daunting task, but I found that I learned best diving head-first and figuring it out, and somehow it worked out! Looking back, this trip is one of my most memorable experiences in China and I'm super excited to share what we got up to. Stay tuned to read about our adventures in Inner Mongolia! But for now, here's a sneak peek:
Between vineyard walks and a tasting with the owners, come along on our visit to Mystic Island Winery, hosted by Dartmouth alum KC Kung '98 and his wife, Rita Kung.
