Hi everyone! I'm Tess, and I live 30 minutes outside of London. I love everything Dartmouth, including the sunsets, the traditions, the classes, and the merch. I'm super excited to experience everything I read about in this blog over the next four years. Come along with me as I explore the ins and outs of life in the woods.
A course that definitely surprised me, I did not know what to expect and had very little philosophical knowledge before taking this course. It was a mixture of current and past readings, with the final project to make a group video, testing my technological ability. Professor Bumpus was amazing, and I got to know her more when I took her to breakfast at Pine through the Take Your Professor to Lunch Program.
I was recommended to take a history course, specifically a history course with Professor Lu, and it has not disappointed! This course is cross listed with Asian Studies, my major, but it has made me consider a history minor... We start every class off with a song relating to the topic of that class, and then we move on to discussion based activities.
So far, the Dartmouth classes I have taken have been all based around discussion and essay writing. As an Asian Studies and Government major, I expected that the rest of my time at Dartmouth would follow a similar pattern, but in fact a pre-requisite for the Government major is a Political Analysis class. This class involves coding, analyzing survey samples, and other quantitative methods. The professor is amazing—a friend and I got to know him better by taking him out to breakfast at Pine through the 'Take Your Professor to Lunch' program. The final group project involves making projections for the 2024 elections using past data. Although, obviously, this election already happened, some of our predictions were more accurate than the polls! It is super interesting to take a class that I can see the themes in real world news outlets.
The Harold Edward Makerspace is a collaborative hub where students of all abilities, as well as artists, and engineers come together to experiment, design, and build. The Makerspace frequently holds different activities for undergraduates, with a recent event being in the theme of Winter Wonderland, making needle felt penguins and snowflake keychains. A few months ago, in the Dartmouth winter spirit, once I received the email inviting students to the workshop, I had to go.
So, in case you want to make a needle felt penguin yourself, let me walk you through the process.
It's a little chilly out, but puts me in the perfect mood to make some winter themed accessories.
2. Warm up with some warm drinks from Lou's
The hot cocoa is definitely my favorite, but the hot apple cider is a close second.
3. Decide whether to make a needle felt penguin or a key chain
I felt that a penguin would better add to my dorm room décor.
4. Start poking at some felt, forming a ball
It takes patience, but this is actually a very therapeutic process; it simply involves using the needle to carefully poke at the felt, beginning to form the shape you desire. Slowly add more and more felt to your shape.
5. Add the white of the penguin belly and the red nose
By now, your project should begin to look more like a penguin.
6. The eyes!
7. Poke two pink feet
8. Finally, for some flippers (not wings)
I googled it, the technical name for penguins' wings is flippers.
9. Success! Now, name your penguin
Mine is called Penelope the Penguin.
All in all, a successful penguin needle felting excursion. The Makerspace is a great place to go to de-stress, or just to get creative. Penelope now sits happily on my desk in my room!
Dartmouth requires all students to take three PE/Wellness classes in order to graduate. Upon hearing glowing recommendations, I chose to take the wellness sampler offered by the Student Wellness Center as a way to fulfill this requirement.
One of the most rewarding parts of my time at Dartmouth so far has been participating in research. Read on to learn more about how Dartmouth makes research accessible for all students!
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.
