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!
As is tradition for every term, I like to introduce the classes I'll be taking so that you can get a better idea of what courses are available at Dartmouth! Although it's only been a few weeks, I've already learned a lot in each of my classes, which is why I thought it'd be a great time to share.
The first class I'm taking is Econ 35, which is Games and Economic Behavior. I took Econ 25 last term, which is in the same sequence as Econ 35. Therefore, I'm excited to build on what I did last term and continue to learn about game theory. The cool thing about this class is that we'll be coding a program to navigate game theory situations, and there will even be a tournament with all our programs! The winner of the tournament gets extra credit for the class, so I'm definitely hoping my program will be able to take advantage of any situation by identifying dominant strategies and nash equilibriums!
Next, I'm also taking Math 32, which is called Shape of Space. As someone who's never really enjoyed math, I took this class because I heard it has a different approach than other math classes. While most classes in math emphasize formulas and rigor, this one is more about intuition and creative thinking. The class has definitely lived up to my expectations, as we spend time in class cutting up paper Mobius strips and playing with play-doh. Here's a picture of my play-doh, which is not only in one of my favorite colors but also something our professor allowed us to take home!
Play-doh from my math class!
Finally, my third class this term is QSS 20, also known as Modern Statistical Computing. It's a really code-heavy class, which has forced me to remember some of my CS1 knowledge from Freshman year. Although it was a struggle at first to get back into coding, I've since grown more and more comfortable. In fact, I'm really proud of completing our first problem set, which seemed like a really daunting task. With the help of several office hours with the Professor and Stack Overflow, I was able to get it done including this beautiful graph you see on the front of the blog post! As a way to combine computing and social sciences, our first problem set studied racial disparities in the criminal justice system. I'm looking forward to continuing to improve my coding skills, which I'll be using in both my Econ and QSS classes!
That's it for now! If you want to see how these classes evolve as the term continues, make sure you follow along the blog. Maybe I'll even be able to show you my game theory program in action!
My class schedule for the term: no classes on Friday!
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.
In Solid Mechanics, we designed and constructed a bridge that held 10kN, around 1000kg! The process, from SOLIDWORKS design to laser cutting to gluing parts together, took us weeks, but it was one of the most rewarding projects I have ever done.
Walking around the Wellelsey campus, it's clear that it was built with intentional incorporation of the surrounding nature. The architecture of many buildings were also mindfully crafted to support Wellesley's unique principles.
My first time in Chicago at the Society of Women Engineers Conference in Chicago, Illinois! Fully funded by Dartmouth, I had a great time meeting amazing companies and getting to know fellow women engineers.
