Hello, 你好, and Bonjour! My name is Tao; I'm from New York City, and I'm a proud first-generation student. I'm currently interested in studying applied math and learning a new language (French, with the intent of studying abroad using my D-Plan!) at Dartmouth. I love being immersed at campus–especially aesthetic Woccoms, fookie grubs at FOCO, and Baker-Berry Tower Room study sessions. Come one, come all: let me take you along!
Academic Program
Mathematics and Quantitative Social Science with a minor in French
As the name describes, this class taught me all about food! While the class is centered on teaching academic writing skills, I have definitely learned a lot about fun topics like food diversity, ethical farming, and culinary significances. For my final project, I got to write about how sauces relates to our society!
One of my favorite things that drew me to outdoor clubs at Dartmouth is feed: it's exactly what it sounds like. But remove one "e", because you are getting fed! Dartmouth has many sub-clubs that revolve around outdoor activities. For example, Ledyard usually hosts activities like canoeing, kayaking, and any water-based outdoor activities. For me, my home club—oh, I love them so much—-the one and only People Of Color Outdoor (POCO!)
As one of the feed chairs, my job is very simple: make sure there's food at every feed for our club members. This week, with the chilly winter in Hanover, we decided to set up a hot pot, which is a traditional Chinese "dish" where we keep a stew heated and we throw whatever we want to cook in the pot—a huge soup pot luck if you will!
To make hot pot happen, we needed to make a checklist:
A pot to make our soup base for cooking
An electric stove to keep it literally hot!
The ingredients we want
Cooking utensils
We made a few runs to get all the ingredients—visiting a local Thai supermarket for some specialty items like bean curds, fish tofu. bean sprouts, vermicelli noodles, and Chinese sausage (lap cheong). On top of the groceries run, we were able to borrow a hotpot and stove from the Chinese House, a LLC at Dartmouth. Side note here, an LLC is essentially a dorm building for students sharing similar academic interests to live together! Students living in the Chinese House, for example, speak Chinese to each other to practice their speaking skills.
The actual cooking process is super easy! All we need to do is to boil the water, put in our seasoning and stocks, then throw in vegetables/meat! We also decided to get a grill to barbecue our meat. In the end, we were all super filled by the huge amount of food we were able to cook, and we left the feed feeling warm on a physical and metaphorical level. Best part of it all: feed expenses are sponsored by the DOC (Dartmouth Outdoor Club)! Feed is one of many extracurricular activities where I get to foster mental-wellness and a sense of belonging!
Entering a new environment miles away from home, knowing little to no people at first, can feel daunting. However, Dartmouth's support systems, particularly through the First Generation Office (FGO), have been nothing short of incredible.
