After considering similar schools, I decided on Dartmouth for its outing club, study abroad program, psychology and brain sciences department, and—let’s face it—the dining hall’s infamous chocolate chip cookies. While my exact major plans are still a work in progress, I am currently thinking history with minors in anthropology and creative writing with a focus (much to my parents’ chagrin) on the pre-modern era.
Academic Program
History, Anthropology modified with Creative Writing
After years of focusing on the modern age, I am thrilled to learn about time periods and places missing from my mental map. I am also loving the fun facts (did you know Dholavira, a city in the Indus Valley civilization, had flush toilets in 2000 BC?).
WinterLondon, England
Interning at a London academic publishing house specialized in history and international relations -- I found it through another Dartmouth student who had previously interned there!
The Sustainable Living Center, a Living Learning Community devoted to environmental and social responsibility, is a white clapboard hall with campus’s best smells. Last night, tired from studying, I opened the door to a waft of banana bread that made me grin from ear to ear. I found my engineer boyfriend attempting, via a fan in the doorway, to fill his third-floor room with banana-bread steam from the kitchen below. Now that’s an engineering application a humanities major can appreciate!
SLC in study mode (note the plate of devoured delicious food)
The SLC breathes welcome even more warmly than banana bread. Community centers around the kitchen, a room brightened by big windows and a chocolate chip container labeled “always keep full.” Each term, students substitute part of their college meal plan with group groceries from the local community-owned store, cooking and cleaning one meal each a term for a weekly “house dinner” with fellow students. Food isn’t just cooked for house dinner, though: I’ve had the great good fortune to partake in blueberry-cardamom-chocolate-chip waffles on Saturday mornings, banana-walnut-chocolate-chip waffles to cap off Tuesday-night studying, and scrambled eggs with home-grown veggies and spiced veggie sausage for breakfast, lunch, or dinner alike.
SLC in hangout mode
Shared food and food space fosters a house camaraderie that leads to happy taste buds and happy hearts at all hours of day and night. So many times I’ve entered to find people talking, studying, or playing board games at the pinewood kitchen table. Discussions have ranged from whether house-garden kale can be eaten after last night’s frost to a student’s summer polar archaeology trip. More than once students have sipped house-brewed kombucha or pored over Kevin Yang ’20’s breathtaking photos. (Ask for his shots of this year’s homecoming bonfire or last summer’s trip to Norway!)
Living together with a shared goal forges connections so strong that people continue to be friends even if they live elsewhere on campus. This Friday, I’m going to a make-your-own pizza party hosted by three girls who lived in the SLC last year. For “SLCers past and present,” it brings together students across class years for shared appreciation of good food, good times, and good conversations (not to mention a good game—or three—of Settlers of Catan). I can't wait to live there officially this winter!
One example of SLC camaraderie even outside house itself: Amanda, campus paper editor-in-chief and SLC alum, threw an abssssolutely ssssplendid birthday/Halloween party--with sssspeciad guesssst ssssurprise!
There are so many things that come to mind when I ask myself what I miss about campus. The smiles as you pass classmates on the Green, the satisfaction of finishing a paper in the Baker Berry tower room, the sweet taste of a FOCO cookie.
Before I know it, it's already time to say goodbye to a somewhat unconventional freshmen year. The memories are here to stay, though. Here are some of my favorite snapshots of my freshmen year!
While many of us may not be on campus to sing and dance and toast to you, we remain so very excited for your joining the Dartmouth community, wonderful class of 2024!
Things I've learned in recent times: 'normal' is a figment of our imagination, and the new 'normal' isn't normal either. Reflecting on Dartmouth before a global pandemic and how I'm handling what it will be like now.
