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.
I don't have anything close to what people often think of as a "tour guide personality." I'm very much an introvert who doesn't naturally gravitate to large groups, I'm not particularly "bubbly," and honestly, I have a really hard time projecting my voice the correct amount. So when all of campus received an email my first year winter inviting students to apply to be a tour guide for Dartmouth Admissions, my first thought wasn't exactly that I'd be perfect for the job. A few of my friends were also applying, though, so I did too, not really expecting much. After I wrote some brief application statements and completed an interview, I was pleasantly surprised to be offered a tour guide job!
Just to further exemplify what I mean when I say I don't have a tour guide personality, my parents recently told me that when I told them I was giving campus tours, they both thought it was something I wouldn't stick with for long. Going into training (on Zoom—it was April 2021), I dealt with a lot of nerves. While I had public speaking experience, I found the idea of memorizing an entire hour-long route with content to present to groups throughout to be pretty intimidating.
Once I met our Tour Guide Trainers, a group of older guides who are hired specifically for the task of onboarding new guides, I instantly relaxed; they were so excited to get to know us and help us in any way they could. While the tour route does have specifically designated stops and topics to address at each of them, I was happy to discover that each portion of the tour is highly personalized. Don't get me wrong—visitors will get the same concrete information on Dartmouth no matter what tour guide they're with. That being said, though, each guide is encouraged to use their personal experiences and involvements at Dartmouth as a vehicle for that information, illustrating a multidimensional and lively Dartmouth experience through their own eyes as a student, rather than just citing facts and figures for the group. We're also supported in conveying an honest picture of our own Dartmouth experiences; if you've had challenges here, you're encouraged to discuss those with visitors as well if you're comfortable! The idea behind a campus tour is to give visitors a sense of what life is like on campus, and the reality is that college can be hard sometimes in a lot of different ways. If there's one thing I learned during training, it's that the best tour is an authentic one, not one that's exclusively positive because it feels like it should be.
After I completed training, it was time to start giving tours, which I've been doing ever since (going on three years now)! Although I was much less anxious than I had been when I started training, the first few "real" tours were nerve-wracking all the same. No matter how many possible questions you're prepared for, there will always be a few that you can't anticipate, so it took a few tours to settle into the groove of thinking on my feet and providing helpful answers for visitors even when I found that I didn't know everything. That process, though it's never truly complete—I gave my 70th tour last week and still don't have the answers to absolutely everything—is genuinely fulfilling.
This isn't a stop on the tour because it's a quiet area, but speaking of reflection, the Baker Stacks are one of my favorite spaces on campus, just a couple dozen feet from where tour guides do stop in the library. My first year at Dartmouth, I spent a lot of time journaling on the top floor--the silence and view provide the perfect environment to sort through your thoughts, academic or otherwise!
In this instance, at least, I proved my parents wrong: being a tour guide was something I stuck with after all! Not only is it a chance to learn about parts of campus and programs at Dartmouth that I haven't engaged with otherwise, but it's also a chance to reflect on the development of my own experiences through the lens of students in the same position I was in four years ago. My mindset, goals, and involvements have transformed so much over the course of my time here, and though much of the tour route and information is the same as when I started, the way I deliver that information has been through many different iterations, each influenced by different academic, social, and extracurricular circumstances of that particular period of my time at Dartmouth.
Whether you end up at Dartmouth or not, I enthusiastically recommend applying to be a tour guide at your school, even if you don't think you have "the personality" for it. Not only is it a great way to strengthen your interpersonal skills and connect with visitors from all over, it's a powerful tool for self-reflection and tracking your own development during some of your most formative years!
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!
The "Why Dartmouth" supplement was the hardest for me to write. How would I explain all the reasons I loved Dartmouth in 100 words? I chose Dartmouth because of how the people and campus made me feel. Dartmouth radiates excitement.
