Hey everyone! I'm Simon, a '24 from Lakewood, CO. Outside of class and the Admissions office, where I'm a tour guide and Senior Fellow, you can find me getting involved with campus music groups, spending time with friends at my gender-inclusive Greek house, on a walk in Pine Park, or meticulously tracking my Spotify data. I hope you have lots of fun exploring Dartmouth with me!
Academic Program
Linguistics major, English and Anthropology minor
Favorite Thing Right Now
Othello (the board game, not the Shakespeare play)
I'd known since middle school that I wanted to major in linguistics, but this was my first chance to take a formal linguistics class, and I absolutely couldn't wait! "An introduction to the scientific description of human language," my (virtual, it was fall 2020) LING 1 class covered phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, sociolinguistics, language revitalization, and so much more! Prof. Coto-Solano couldn't have been a better introduction to Dartmouth linguistics; he's one of the kindest people I've ever met and, of course, unbelievably knowledgeable.
But really, is a hot dog a sandwich? It's all just semantics; take this class to find out! Another Zoom favorite of mine, Prof. Pulju made every day in this course entertaining. I learned so much about the vast changes in perception and meaning that can come from the tiniest change in wording that most people don't even consciously pick up on. I wrote a final paper investigating the gray area between different past tenses in French--classic word nerd stuff, but so much fun.
As a queer language nerd, this course naturally landed squarely at the intersection of my interests. This was my final virtual term at Dartmouth, and Prof. Billings made it a great one! We discussed the ways quotidian language use reinforces misogyny and transphobia, as well as the nuances of negotiating various iterations of femininities and masculinities through language--we all mediate our genders through language every single day, mostly in ways we don't even notice. The highlights were definitely presenting to the class on language and gender in Dorian Electra's "Flamboyant" and coming to a new understanding of my own identity through the sociolinguistic discussions we had throughout the course.
Still amidst the pandemic, I spent my freshman summer at home with my family and working a food service job. Outside of work, I had the chance to let the chaos and intense learning experience that was my first year settle behind me and reflect on how I wanted to shape my Dartmouth experience going forward. My freshman roommate, who's from Massachusetts and I've stayed close with to this day, visited me in Colorado, and I had so much fun showing them around! At the end of the summer, I went back to Hanover a little early to serve as an Orientation Leader and had a great time getting to know the 25s and helping them through their first days on campus in various capacities.
This six-person class with Prof. Stanford was one of the coolest classes I've taken throughout my whole time at Dartmouth. We spent the entire term learning linguistic field methods by doing collaborative research on the Georgian language alongside another Dartmouth student who's a native speaker of the language! I wrote a 45-page paper for this class on Georgian morphosyntax and really enjoyed it; finishing that paper was one of the most fulfilling moments of my Dartmouth career. The small class size was a wonderful chance to bond extensively with my classmates, and I also appreciated the challenge of being the only 24 in the course alongside more experienced Linguistics majors, from whom I learned so much.
This was my first English class at Dartmouth, and the one that made me decide to declare an English minor. Prof. Stuelke, who's fantastic and inspired me to take another class with her (Contemporary American Fiction) my sophomore summer, assembled a brilliant syllabus that introduced us to an array of artistic activism traditions across time and geography. We read theory alongside memoirs, and examined photography and film alongside poetry and painting. Our final project was to create political art of our own, and I had the chance to photograph a number of trans and non-binary Dartmouth students as an exploration of stereotype, homonationalism, and transnormativity. I'm still friends with some of the students I photographed to this day, and it was a great joy to hear and tell the stories of so many of my fellow queer community members on campus!
After Field Methods, I had to take another class with Prof. Stanford, and I was so glad I did! This class was the ten-week, more in-depth version of those "pop/soda/coke" maps that you see online. We explored social speech patterns and how they vary (or don't!) across different geographic regions, genders, cultures, ethnicities, socioeconomic status . . . the list goes on. This is one of my favorite subfields of linguistics, and I'd been excited to take it ever since I found out my freshman fall that it was offered. A large component of the class was an independent group research project; my group did a perceptual dialectology study on how L1 American English speakers (randomly selected from the Novack Café study area) viewed the Malaysian English dialect in comparison to American English. The survey results were fascinating, and I ended the class wishing I could spend another 10 weeks on the material!
In the spirit of sophomore summer and trying new things, I decided to sign up for my very first film class at Dartmouth this term! I had no prior film experience, but every single day in this class was beyond exciting. The primary focus of the class was hands-on learning; every day, we found ourselves attempting a new cameraless film technique, from bleaching film to painting on it to splicing it together (and so much more)! At the end of the quarter, each student made their own film that screened at an open-to-campus event (complete with movie theatre snacks and drinks)! It felt great to see my work on the big screen when just ten weeks ago, I couldn't have told you a single step of the process that would go into creating that final product.
During the last of my five straight terms in Hanover, I really enjoyed this class with Prof. Huang. I'd taken classes in other departments that were crosslisted with WGSS before, but never signed up for a class that was exclusively in the WGSS department; that changed this term, and I'm so glad it did! The syllabus included "scholars and activists from diverse social and geopolitical positions through coalitions across global, regional, national, and local borders, within and beyond the nation-state." Our readings and topics we covered were just as wide-reaching and varied as they sound, from Palestinian feminist collectives to queer diaspora to disability justice activism in the context of the pandemic. At the end of the course, I got to produce a zine with a classmate as a final project!
WinterTāmaki Makaurau (Auckland), Aotearoa New Zealand, and Rarotonga, Cook Islands
I first read about the Linguistics FSP as a high schooler, and it was a big part of what drew me to Dartmouth in the first place, so this program was quite literally a dream come true. I can't say enough good things about this FSP and how transformative it was: the first six weeks were spent at the University of Auckland taking classes with seriously incredible Māori professors on te reo (language) Māori and te ao (world) Māori, followed by four weeks spent in the Cook Islands, doing research for Cook Islands Māori language revitalization initiatives at the University of the South Pacific. Our professors and classes prioritized Indigenous history and perspectives in a way that's almost unheard of in the US, and everything beyond the classroom offered boundless opportunities to learn and make new friends, from watching the sunset on Maungawhau and talking late into the night to snorkeling with turtles on the Rarotonga reef. No small paragraph could do this experience justice, but just know that I truly cannot recommend this FSP enough!
I signed up for this course to have more time in the classroom with Prof. Craig, who was present for much of my FSP in Aotearoa, is a truly incredible teacher and human, and co-taught this class with Dr. Mishra. This course featured an unbelievably wide array of unconventional learning opportunities: we attended weekly yoga nidra sessions and were each paired with an older Community Partner to bond with so as to reflect and process both of our life experiences from our opposite ends of the "life timeline." Our small discussion group, which met for the final hour of class each Wednesday evening, was something I always looked forward to, as we were able to be genuine and vulnerable with one another throughout our discussions, something I've never experienced to quite the same degree that I did in this class.
I wasn't taking classes this summer, but I lived in Hanover and worked full-time for Dartmouth Admissions as a Senior Fellow! This summer, I wrote for 3D magazine, recruited panelists for virtual programming, delivered info sessions, started this blog (of course) and so much more. I really enjoyed that every day is a little different in the Admissions office and learning about how different elements of the office work behind the scenes. Best of all, there are always opportunities to meet new people visiting Dartmouth from all over and hear about their lives! I've linked Sydney's blog post above (she's also a Senior Fellow!) for the inside scoop on working for the Admissions office :)
FallHanover, NH
Most Dartmouth students take their non-summer "off term" sometime during their sophomore or junior year. I changed my D-plan a few times and ultimately ended up with a slightly unconventional off term: senior fall! Since it's my last year here, I stayed in Hanover for my off term to be able to live alongside my friends for one of the last few times. Even though I wasn't in class, I was busy. I continued to work as a Senior Fellow and tour guide in the Admissions office (I loved answering prospective students' questions in Zoom student chats this fall especially) and also worked at two Dartmouth Dining Services locations. I performed in the color guard while acting as a co-social chair for the Dartmouth College Marching Band, and serving as both house manager and webmaster for my Greek house.
I signed up for this class as the final one to complete my English minor, and didn't entirely know what to expect going into it. I've been astounded so far by just how much I've loved it--this winter, you'll probably be able to find me alone at my desk with a cup of tea reading Woolf's work aloud to myself. Prof. Orner, who's an accomplished writer himself, is really encouraging us to really spend quality time one-on-one with the readings, and it's been fantastic for the reader and writer in me, but the reflecting-on-life enjoyer in me as well. Woolf's work seems to evoke ghosts a lot, Prof. Orner pointed out recently, in ways I hadn't previously understood to be possible.
When I started at Dartmouth in the fall of 2020, I was, by all accounts and appearances, a girl. I introduced myself using the name I was given at birth, told everyone I used she/her pronouns, and had long hair… you get the picture. I'd known on some level that I was trans for years, but when I got to Dartmouth, the supportive queer community and friends I found here helped me get to a place where I was able to do the internal work of figuring out exactly what that meant for me.
By the time I came out as trans my sophomore fall, I'd already been at Dartmouth for a year, so everyone I'd met here watched my transition in real time and had to adjust to me using a new name, my appearance changing, etc. In that sense, because I came out and started transitioning once I was already at Dartmouth, I never had the chance to keep that information private because it was simply very publicly visible. While, of course, something this significant is always tough to navigate in one way or another, I've learned so much and found so many sources of support at Dartmouth throughout this journey that I want to share with you, especially if you're a queer or trans student thinking about coming to Dartmouth! (Side note: this is just my own experience—yours might be different, and that's normal! Not everything is universal, but hopefully, this will provide you with some insight regardless).
Most importantly, when I came out as trans, at first just changing my pronouns and then my name, I found that many people and groups accepted me with open arms. Changing my name in the middle of an academic year was an anxiety-filled process, but it's very easy to change your name in the Dartmouth computer system, and while some of my peers took a bit of time to adjust to the change, I was truly met with positivity and affirmation almost everywhere I went. In fact, most of my friends at Dartmouth are queer, but even outside of my primary social circles and in non-queer organizations and spaces, I've found that most people have been very supportive! There are some queer-specific student organizations, such as Within, but there are countless ways to find a queer community here in unofficial ways. Personally, I've found a lot of my own queer community within gender-inclusive Greek life, but there are trans and queer students all across campus: affiliated and unaffiliated, STEM and humanities majors, athletes and artists alike.
Me and the trans flag at my gender-inclusive Greek house last spring! (The stuffed rat is a long story... his name is Ratthew. Please direct all questions and concerns to Connect With A Student or one of my campus tours.)
For some trans people, there's a medical aspect to the transition process as well. I'd known for a pretty long time that I wanted to pursue hormone replacement therapy once it was possible for me, and Dartmouth made it just about as accessible as it gets. Dartmouth's student insurance covers hormone replacement therapy through the college health service, and while it is still a multi-step medical process that involves consultations and bloodwork, it was really quite painless compared to the difficulties I've heard of others having with regard to trans healthcare access across the country.
Beyond student organizations and transition resources, there are plenty of academic opportunities to engage with trans identity and community. I've taken four classes in the Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies department, including WGSS 53.07: Language, Gender, & Sexuality, which guided me to a much clearer picture of how the way we use everyday language constructs gender as we "know" it. I actually took this course before I came out as trans, and many of the readings helped me to work through questions I was grappling with in my own mind. I've also had a lot of opportunities to engage with topics relating to queer and trans identities in the English, anthropology, and linguistics departments. In ENGL 63.04: Arts Against Empire, as part of an assignment to create our own political art, I took on an amateur photography project highlighting trans and non-binary Dartmouth students in opposition to both homonationalism and transnormativity; in LING 17: Sociolinguistics, we extensively discussed the factors that go into "gendering" a person's voice (fun fact: it's a lot more complicated than just pitch!), as well as the different ways trans people's voices change, whether by medical intervention or voice training and how those impact the different "gendered" elements of the human voice.
I've been lucky to have a really supportive community of other trans and queer people at Dartmouth, and I've also been able to take advantage of a wide array of opportunities to engage with queer identity both in and out of the classroom. That's not to say things are perfect all of the time—being trans inherently comes with its challenges, and Dartmouth is not a bubble neatly separated from the rest of the world, but I will say again that I've met so many enthusiastically supportive people here who have made the process SO much easier than I know it could've been. I'm truly grateful for the ways in which my community here has shaped my journey and continues to shape it every day. That being said, though all blog posts must come to an end, I know this is an especially multifaceted topic, so if you're a trans prospective student who wants to talk in more detail about being trans at Dartmouth, I'm always available via Connect With A Student and would love to answer your questions!
It's easy to forget how easy it is to access walking trails during the hustle of a Dartmouth term. As graduation nears, I am reminded of how special it is to step off campus and enjoy quiet moments in nature.
With a solar eclipse sweeping across North America for the first time in nearly seven years on April 8th came a road-trip with hundreds of other Dartmouth students to a zone of totality near campus: St. Johnsbury, Vermont!
