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.
There are several different types of on-campus housing offered at Dartmouth: housing communities/dorms, Living Learning Communities (LLCs), and Greek housing (There are a couple of college-owned apartment options for upperclassmen as well, and, of course, the possibility of living off-campus too)! I'm in the somewhat unique position of having lived in all three, so I thought I'd elaborate a bit more on what each option looks like.
Dorms/Housing Communities!
There are already several blog posts about the housing communities, but here is a quick summary: we have six housing communities here at Dartmouth, and you're sorted randomly into one of them at the start of your first year here. Each housing community has a designated cluster of dorms on campus that you'll continue to live in for all four years, should you choose to continue living in the dorms. Even if you don't live in your housing community's assigned dorms, you're still a part of that community for all four years, and you can still attend events and participate in activities hosted by your housing community regardless.
Wheeler Hall, my first fall dorm (taken the day I moved into it in fall 2020)!
I'm in School House (cool house!), and my first year here, I lived in the School House dorms. Usually, you stay in one room with the same roommate(s) for your entire first year, but due to COVID circumstances my first year, housing processes were a bit different, so I spent my first year fall in Wheeler Hall with one roommate, and my winter and spring in Mid Massachusetts Hall with another. It's important to note that your first-year roommate is assigned to you by the college; over the summer before you move in, you fill out a survey with lifestyle questions about when you go to bed, how organized you are, when/where you plan to study, etc., and the college uses those answers to match you with a roommate. Since many students come into Dartmouth not knowing anyone, this was really helpful in my experience and saved me a lot of extra stress of having to find my own roommate my first term.
There's a wide array of room arrangements of dorm rooms at Dartmouth, including singles, one-room doubles, two-room doubles, two-room triples, suites with several rooms branching off one common space shared by roommates… the list goes on. In my first year, both of my rooms were two-room triples that were temporarily being used as two-room doubles (once again, COVID), but I've known students who have had all of the previously listed arrangements for their first year. You can express some preferences on the aforementioned survey, and if you need a single for a specific accommodation, you can reach out to the housing office, and they'll work with you!
Overall, I really enjoyed living in the dorms my first year; the biggest highlight for me was the opportunity to live on a floor exclusively with other first-year students. Finding COVID-safe workarounds, our UGA (like an RA at other schools) hosted a variety of activities for us to hang out and get to know each other, and since everyone was in a similar position of just arriving at Dartmouth and trying to meet new people, every single person was super friendly and always willing to say hi and chat! One of my very best friends today lived right across the hall from me during my first fall.
Living Learning Communities!
In my sophomore year, I decided to apply to live in Triangle House, Dartmouth's LGBTQ+ Living Learning Community (LLC). An LLC at Dartmouth is a residential space designed around a specific interest or identity so that students who share that interest/identity can live with each other and build community around it. There are a number of LLCs across campus, including the Native American House, the Sustainable Living Center, La Casa (a language-based LLC where students are expected to speak only Spanish with each other and at events), and, of course, Triangle House!
After writing a quick application with just a few very short essay questions about why I wanted to live in Triangle House and how I hoped to contribute to the community there, I was happy to find out I'd been assigned a double in Triangle House with a good friend! TriHo (as it's affectionately called) is a really nice building with more kitchen materials than most dorms, and our room was huge—we're pretty sure to this day that we had the largest one-room double on campus. The basement has several study rooms that I practically lived in at some points during my time there, including a room with couches that had several bookshelves with just about any queer book and film you can imagine. I was really grateful for the opportunity to live alongside other queer students and attend community events throughout the year, including the fall welcome barbecue in our backyard, a catered community Panera dinner, midterms and finals study breaks, movie nights, and so much more!
Greek Housing!
My room from this past summer in Alpha Theta (my Greek house)! It's called Trophy, named for the numerous intramural competition trophies from last century that live in it. (Wall mural by a really cool '22 Alpha Thetian, @emd.ev on Instagram)
In my junior fall and spring–and now again for my senior year—I decided to live in Alpha Theta, my gender-inclusive Greek house. If you're a member of a Greek organization at Dartmouth, you're not required to live in the house at any point—many affiliated students graduate without ever living in their house. Personally, I'm so glad I took advantage of the chance to live in my house! While it's still on-campus, college-coordinated housing, the house itself is privately owned, meaning we have more flexibility when it comes to what we do with our rooms. As such, each room in the house has some kind of theme and is painted colorfully in accordance with that theme. There's also a lot more flexibility with move-in and move-out dates since the college doesn't regulate that as strictly as they do with the dorms. As someone who has to travel pretty far to get home, I really appreciate the flexibility with that timeline.
However, the biggest benefit to living in my Greek house has been the social interaction! I know everyone I live with pretty well, and every time I go downstairs, there's someone hanging out in the living room, doing homework, playing board games, or just having a conversation. I can always rely on there being someone downstairs that I can stop and chat with on my way in or out of the house, and there's something to do or someone to talk to at pretty much all hours of the day. Also, we have some really good bean bag chairs—I think in my junior fall, I spent as many nights on our bean bags as I did in my own bed :) Having experienced almost all the on-campus housing options Dartmouth has to offer, I can say I've enjoyed all of them—while they certainly each have their own benefits and character, each one has offered me a new way not just to sleep in a room at night, to get to know other people and spend quality time with them!
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!
