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
Fun fact: Every dorm building at Dartmouth has a running kitchen! But they often go underused (except for the large community fridge) because Dartmouth schedules can move super quick—so most Dartmouth students opt in to eat at dining halls or campus cafes!
However, cooking at Dartmouth is so much fun! This week, me and my group of friends decided to bake some cakes and cupcakes for our other friends since their birthdays are coming up and only one day away from each other. Using the kitchen is super easy. There is everything I need from cooking utensils like spatula, pots, and stove to baking materials like teaspoons, tablespoons, oven, and even ultra-durable whisks! We decided to bake red-velvet cupcakes and fun-fetti cake using cake-mixes.
While waiting for the cupcakes to bake, me and my friends had some time to chat about our term. We talked about how our classes were going and also discussed possible weekend plans, since there's tons of activities to do in a snowy upper-valley like skiing and the annual Winter Carnival!
After the cakes were done, it was time to frost! While we didn't exactly have an electric mixer to make frosting, we substituted pre-made frosting! I must add: something about smearing cold cream cheese frosting on mini cupcakes feels so therapeutic. For the next 30 minutes to an hour, we were bush coating cakes (and perhaps our lips too, because the frostings were so delicious)!
Being at Dartmouth, I've always been traversing through classes, academic buildings, and extracurricular activities and realized I haven't had a chance to fully sit down and have a relaxing baking session with my friends—-the dorm kitchens allowed me to have this space—and it's one thing I appreciate a lot about housing communities at Dartmouth.
In my freshman year, I wrote a blog revisiting my decision of attending Dartmouth College. Now that more than a year has passed, I would love to revisit my decision again, with a more realistic lens.
