Hello there! My name is Shuyi and I'm a '23, which means it's my senior year here at Dartmouth! Follow me for my last year at Dartmouth as I reflect upon my college experience. At Dartmouth, I enjoy playing squash, eating at late night, and of course, blogging. You can ask me about studying social sciences, coming to Dartmouth as an international student, and anything else really. I hope you enjoy the blog!
I actually wasn't planning on taking this class but it eventually became my favorite class. The professor was very funny and created a relaxed classroom environment where I enjoyed looking at diversity in different contexts, such as college admissions and group dynamics.
This class was a perfect mix of philosophy, classical studies, and writing. We were able to reflect on societal views, our own ideas of optimism and pessimism, and how we can lead more fulfilling and compassionate lives.
My first experience with computer science was my Freshman winter, and I quickly became interested in the subject. I followed up CS1 with CS10 in the Spring, which I found just as cool. I love how you can solve problems by applying logic and math with computer science, and I look forward to diving deeper into the major!
Econ 21 is required for all Econ majors, and I loved my experience with Professor Gustman. He made the material super easy to digest and allowed me to take exams in my timezone, which I thought was really nice.
It was really interesting to study public speaking in an asynchronous environment, and I came away with a deeper understanding of not only public speaking but speech writing. I wrote a separate blog post about the class, so check it out!
Since English was one of my favorite classes in high school, I wanted to take another writing course at Dartmouth. This was a great choice, as it was a perfect mix of lecture and discussion. I loved reading and learning about several American dramas, and even discussing modern topics such as Trump's rhetoric!
SummerShanghai
I took my Sophomore Summer off, which many international students do, and got involved with the Tuck School of Business through the Bridge and Paganucci programs! You can read more about my summer experiences in my blogs!
This was my first class from the QSS department, which was long overdue considering that I'm a QSS major! I really enjoyed picking up some coding skills and tackling problems like transitional justice with quantitative approaches.
I took Econ 25 in the Fall, and Econ 35 was the next course in the game theory sequence! It was really fun to apply game theory to cool concepts like sports, Covid-19, and auctions.
This was my first time taking a music class even though I have been involved with music my entire life, whether that was playing the piano or learning how to make beats. I loved this class because I not only learned more about music, but more about Native culture as well!
SummerNew York
I took my junior summer off to pursue a management consulting internship in New York. I had a wonderful experience!
I absolutely loved this class! Theatre was one of my favorite classes in middle school, and so it was great to reconnect with theatre again in college. The professor was amazingly kind and passionate, and the final project was a really fun group performance!
This was a small class of around 15 people, which allowed us to have intimate discussions of readings and theatre. I loved hearing from my classmates, as we used our personal experiences to guide us in our understanding of materials. My final project was a protest on campus, which also really fun and refreshing take on performance!
While some of you may still be deciding on where to go, many of you have (hopefully) committed to Dartmouth and are waiting excitedly for new adventures and friends. Although you should definitely focus on enjoying the rest of your senior year and the summer, it's certainly expected that many of you are looking forward to beginning your next journey in Hanover. In fact, one way I learned about Dartmouth after being accepted was reading about the different blog posts on People, Places, Pines! Since there are hundreds of posts out there, I thought I would provide a guide on how to navigate the website and find the content you're most excited or curious about!
First, a great way to find posts on a specific topic is typing some keywords into "Search All Posts", which can be found on the homepage. There, you'll be able to find blog posts on your specific topic with various perspectives from different student bloggers! Alternatively, you might find that you really like a few specific student bloggers, whether that's because you like their writing style, you share similar backgrounds, or something else. If that's the case, simply click on their profile or the "All Posts by this Blogger" button to view more from that specific blogger!
Although exploring the blog and finding different voices and topics can be one of the best ways to learn about Dartmouth, you simply might not have enough time to explore the website. If you're hoping to quickly learn more about what Dartmouth is like (which might be especially useful if you're still deciding between colleges), I thought it would be helpful to link some of my personal favorite blog posts below. Of course, everyone's personal favorites are different, so I encourage you to do some digging yourself as well!
Food is important, and there are a lot of blog posts about food here. One of my personal favorites is this one by Elina Pepper '22, as there's a lot of pictures that help you visualize our different options. Elina also does a great job of explaining how each option differs and what you might expect at each place!
Next, let's talk about traditions. Although most students know about Homecoming (which we have so many blog posts about), there are other traditions that are often overlooked. Read about some of my favorite winter traditions, as Chidera Duru '25 talks about Winter Carnival here and Paulina Caudra '25 tries to explain why we throw tennis balls at a hockey game here!
Of course, at Dartmouth we like to believe we are gifted students, which is why many of you might already be thinking about classes. Although you don't have to pick classes until the fall, almost every blogger talks about the classes they've taken. Read about Luke Grayson's '25 theatre class here, or even Gabriel Gilbert's '23 study abroad experience in Hawaii here. For a full courseload, you can click to read about Sydney Wuu's '24 classes last winter!
Finally, to tie this all together, it can be fun to read about a student's average day at Dartmouth. While every day is different, I'm proud of this post I wrote last winter, where I shared a particularly exciting day full of skiing, classes and friends (and homework). Go give it a look!
I hope this post can be a great starting point for those of you beginning to explore People, Places. Pines. I truly enjoyed reading it while I was in your shoes, and now I'm so excited to be producing content for all of you! There's so many great voices and content pieces here, so have fun binge reading!
Through Dartmouth's Guarini Institute for International Study, I am getting to take classes and experience life at Wellesley College, an all-women's school!
