Summit of mountain with rain clouds in background

Will Gerrish

Class of 2022
Will Gerrish '22

About 

Hey everyone! I'm Will, a '22 from a small island on the coast of New Hampshire. I'm an avid reader and writer, and when I'm not buried in a book at Sanborn Library you can usually find me hanging out and laughing with friends somewhere around campus. I also love playing guitar, jamming with friends, and discovering new music. Dartmouth has been my favorite place in the world for the last three years and I hope this blog reveals even just a fraction of what makes it so incredible!

Academic Program 

English major with a Creative Writing focus; Economics minor

Favorite Thing Right Now 

Feeling the weather get just a little bit warmer

Hometown 

New Castle, New Hampshire

Pronouns 

he/him/his

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Will's D-Plan

What's a D-Plan?

    • FallHanover, NH

      Favorite Class: Writing 5 — Sex and Violence in the Bible

      Professor James Murphy taught this introductory expository writing course around complex topics in the Bible including marriage, murder, and sacrifice. I had daily discussions with just 12 other students and ended up writing a 22-page final paper on marriage in the Bible—still the longest and most complex paper I've written to this day!

    • WinterHanover, NH

      Favorite Class: Writing and Reading Creative Nonfiction

      I discovered a new favorite genre of writing in this class: creative nonfiction, or literary journalism—essentially telling true stories with creative elements you might find in fiction (think Joan Didion or Tom Wolfe). This course challenged me to write in ways I had never done before and inspired me to introduce a creative writing concentration to my English major. The professor, Jeff Sharlet, also became a close mentor for me.

    • SpringHanover, NH

      Favorite Class: Macroeconomics

      I took this unique case-study-based macroeconomics course with Professor Diego Comin. Comin framed the class around discussion rather than lecture and we spent hours discussing unique macroeconomic developments such as Singapore's rapid economic rise and Spain's unemployment crisis. I loved seeing economic principles in action during the case studies for this course.

    • SummerNew Castle, NH

      I spent the summer back at home in New Castle! I worked at a concert venue in Hampton, NH as a stage hand and got to see tons of live shows as well as spend time with my friends from home before we all headed back to college.

    • FallHanover, NH

      Favorite Class: Writing with Algorithms

      I took this unique course that combined English with Computer Science by challenging us to write poetry using the Python programming language. I learned how to web scrape, create frequency distributions, and many other skills to create art in ways I had never imagined. I also used many of the skills in this course for a research project with Jeff Sharlet my junior winter!

    • WinterHanover, NH

      Favorite Class: Financial Intermediaries and Markets

      Professor Meir Kohn's legendary Econ 26 course is taught entirely with the Socratic method—instead of lecturing, Kohn engages with students in question-based cold calls that challenge them to get to the root of their knowledge and understanding. I found the classroom environment thrilling and learned more than I ever thought possible in 10 weeks.

    • SpringNew Castle, NH

      Favorite Class: Intermediate Creative Nonfiction

      My second class with Jeff Sharlet, this course was a highlight of my first term of online learning during the Covid-19 pandemic. Jeff adapted well to the online format and challenged me and my fellow writers to investigate both our own lives and the lives around us as we adjusted to being stuck in our homes.

    • SummerHanover, NH

      I moved up to Hanover for the summer, living in an off-campus apartment. I worked on a variety of projects, including giving live virtual tours for Admissions and helping with the creation of a Dartmouth literary magazine called Meetinghouse.

    • FallHanover, NH

      Favorite Class: Masterpieces of 19th Century British Fiction

      This reading-intensive course introduced me to British writers like Charlotte Bronte and Thomas Hardy. The class discussions, even on Zoom, were stimulating and exciting and the phenomenal books in the course kept me entertained.

    • WinterHanover, NH

      I spent the winter on an off-term, living in Hanover and doing research with Professor Jeff Sharlet. I helped him with a piece on Covid loss called "All That We've Lost," recently published in Esquire magazine. I also used some skills from my previous class, Writing with Algorithms, to help Jeff web scrape and archive the entire Twitter feed of Capitol rioter Ashli Babbitt for a profile he was working on.

    • SpringHanover, NH

      Favorite Class: Senior Workshop in Creative Writing: Fiction

      I switched from creative nonfiction to fiction writing for my senior workshop with renowned writer Peter Orner. The class was an intensive workshop course that challenged us nine writers to constantly create new material while engaging with both published work and each others' writing. The hard work of the class helped me develop immensely as a writer, both broadly and within the fiction genre.

    • SummerHanover, NH

      I'm spending the summer in Hanover working as a Senior Fellow for Admissions! I'm busy giving tours, writing for the blog, and engaging with a variety of projects for Admissions that allow me to share my love for and experience with Dartmouth. It's been a blast so far and I can't wait to continue the job throughout my senior year!

    • FallHanover, NH

      Favorite Class: The Undead South

      One of my first in-person classes in over a year, this fascinating English course examined themes of horror and haunting in Southern literature and was taught by one of my favorite professors in the English Department, Melanie Taylor. I dragged two of my non-English-major friends into the class with me and their initial reluctance quickly turned to deep engagement as we read Faulkner and O'Connor and McCarthy and Poe.

    • WinterHanover, NH

      Favorite Class: Guitar IIP

      This was my final term of the Individual Instruction Program for guitar, a Music Department course I have been consistently taking since my Freshman year. The course is a weekly one-on-one music lesson with a Dartmouth faculty member (for guitar, it is the fantastic Jason Ennis) that has allowed me to keep up with my skills and passion for guitar while also gaining course credits. The program has been challenging, rewarding, and deeply enjoyable for me, as we worked on everything from the basics of jazz up through Wes Montgomery and Grant Green. In the Spring, I'll be doing an Advanced Guitar course that culminates in a six-song recital to cap off my four-year-long work with the Music Department.