Serena Goldstein

Class of 2028

I absolutely love how many traditions Dartmouth has! This past weekend was Homecoming Weekend, and I spent it around the bonfire, hanging out with friends, and cheering on our Dartmouth Football team. In this blog post I will tell you all about my authentic freshman experience surrounding the bonfire!

One of the most essential and hyped up events of the weekend is our giant bonfire. Indeed, I was not disappointed! I was involved in this from start to finish, and I enjoyed every moment of it.

First-years are really involved in this tradition. First, we have Bonfire Chairs, first-years who are in charge of organizing this fun tradition and get to light the bonfire for the entire Dartmouth community! Moreover, the bonfire itself is built entirely by the current first-year class. Our bonfire chairs emailed all the first-year students, telling us that we had the opportunity to sign up for an hour-long building time slot to help construct the bonfire. I was so excited to build a giant wooden structure that would go up in flames a week later, and I immediately signed up for a slot.

Upon reaching the bonfire building site, the center of the Green, I met my five other coworkers. We swiftly donned our safety hats and protective goggles and confidently climbed up the ladder.

Serena climbs up a yellow adder in the center of the picture. She wears a gray sweatshirt and around her is the yellow wooden beams of the bonfire.

Action shot! It felt like I was really high up in the air!

Now was time for the exciting part: manual labor. As you can see from the picture below, there was a giant forklift (how cool). The forklift operator transferred stacks of wood, some were flat wooden crates and others were wooden beams, up to us so we could build up the bonfire. We stacked the crates in the center to build up the interior of the bonfire and have a sturdy surface to walk on. After that task was done, we carefully constructed the exterior of our structure!

a forklift and the bonfire are in the middle of the green. The grey sky is above and the green grass is below.

Shoutout to my roommate Anna who took a picture of us hard at work as she walked across the green!

With meticulous precision, we maneuvered the wooden beams to build up the exterior walls. The wooden beans were heavy—I could feel my muscles growing stronger each time we picked one up! Anyways, once placed on the edge of the bonfire, we measured and remeasured to make sure our structure was stable, safe, and precisely constructed!

A picture of a corner of the bonfire. The beams are yellow and you can see gravel on the ground. There is a gray sky.

Doesn't this sharp corner just bring a tear of joy to your eye? I know it does for me!

The picture shows Serena with her hands on her hips in front of the same bonfire. She is wearing a grey sweatshirt and there is the forklift machine behind her to the left.

A job well done!

At the end of our timeslot, we disembarked from the towering structure we had helped construct. I said goodbye to the new friends I had made while up there, dusted off my pants and set down my hard hat, all with a satisfied smile at a job well done.

Now comes an even more fun part—Friday night AKA the night of the Bonfire!

We first met at our House Spirit Stations, I belong to South House and our social space is called the Onion, where we were warmly welcomed with free food and special merch! We then took part in the First Year Sweep, which is when all first-years walk to the Green as one community.

People stand on the sidewalk while the trees in front of them are dark and slightly lit up with the glow of lamplights. People process in the street holding green banners up high.

Alumni processed in front of us!

Once at the Green, we walked one lap (while, for safety and practical reasons, first years are no longer allowed to engage in the tradition of running their graduating year laps around the bonfire, the class of 1999 famously ran 99 laps around the bonfire!) around the fire while upperclassmen and alumni ringed the fence and shouted encouraging and uplifting messages to us!

It was so hot near the fire! What a transcendent experience.