Hey y'all, welcome to the woods! My name is Garrett Crouch, and I'm a '26 from Edmond, Oklahoma. Besides blogging, I'm involved in Greek Life and Dartmouth's Psychological and Brain Sciences Department. I enjoy reading sci-fi, listening to 90s rock, and playing video games in my free time. Other than that, I'm thrilled to have the opportunity to share a bit of my Dartmouth student experience with you—stay a while and enjoy!
For my first term at Dartmouth, I had a lot of fun exploring different courses/areas of study that piqued my interest—EARS 14 is a perfect example. This course in particular was very friendly to new students. I had a lot of fun analyzing the ways in which Earth's weather system works, everything from the tornado and climate labs to black lightning and supercooled ice. Professor Osterberg made the course extremely fascinating and personable! I'm extremely glad I took this course and recommend it to anyone interested in Earth Science.
I had zero programming experience prior to taking this course, and quite honestly, It was a split decision on my part. Nonetheless, I'm extremely glad I took COSC 1, and as a byproduct, I have a newfound love for computers. I came out of the course with a solid foundation in computer science principles as well as programming skills. More importantly, I made my own fully-functioning video game! ; )
I didn’t anticipate this course being all that different from Latin I, but it ended up being a nice surprise. A typical Latin course at Dartmouth involves small class sizes, group work, and the occasional lecture; however, within Latin II, we had opportunities to take a wide variety of field trips and learn more about the history of the Latin language as well as the many people that spoke it. I thoroughly enjoyed stepping outside the sphere of strictly language work (grammar, vocabulary, etc.) and learning more about the history of Latin in Latin II.
Psych 6 is by far my favorite course I've taken at Dartmouth—this course made me decide to pursue the neuroscience major. Whether it was walking out of the Moore Psychology Building with goosebumps down my spine having just seen a human brain in the flesh, or lying in bed rewatching lectures on the cellular mechanisms of long-term memory storage. This course genuinely made me feel like a kid discovering the world again for the first time, I loved it.
I loved this course—it was a fascinating mix of the neuroscience behind addiction as well as a deep dive into every class of drug. What particularly stood out about this course was the ability to connect my undergraduate research lab experience with the concepts I was learning (I'm currently involved in a neuroscience research lab studying psilocybin, the main psychoactive compound found in magic mushrooms, so it was fascinating to see the parallels there).
At first, I was worried Cognitive Psychology was going to be a slight rerun of some of the concepts covered in Psych 6: Introduction to Neuroscience, but this class was actually a pleasant surprise. We covered everything from how babies accurately learn their native language so quickly, to how we uniquely store complex, emotional memories as humans. We even covered a unit on everything psychologists know about the problem of consciousness, which was my personal favorite. There’s something alluring (and undeniably meta) about being conscious while learning about how we know nothing about consciousness—a recurring theme in the Brain Sciences!
For those who are away/have been away from campus: what do you miss most about Hanover and Dartmouth?
A:
As a first-year student currently on campus for the winter, I've only technically been away from Dartmouth/Hanover one time—during my first winterim (Dartmouth's version of winter break). However, although my overall experience with time away from Dartmouth might not be as broad as some of my peers, this question definitely resonates with me.
Winterim at Dartmouth is long, 6 weeks (plus a few days if you're lucky with scheduling finals). For my first winterim, at the very least, half of my time was either 1. spent thinking about returning to campus or 2. calling/talking to my new friends from campus (who also spent their time thinking about returning to campus). It was one of those moments where you don't realize how special something is until you aren't surrounded by it anymore; I initially anticipated winterim being this super relaxing, maybe even productive time to catch up with hometown friends, family, and the like, but after about a week of being home I already missed campus significantly more than I thought I would.
Which leads me to what I missed most about campus (and what I think I'll consistently miss the most): community. There's just nothing quite like the Dartmouth community. I might be a little biased with my answer because I've had a particularly good experience with finding a supportive group of friends and mentors, but most of the students I talk to (and even faculty) tend to agree that the Dartmouth community is what makes life here so special.
On top of community and friends, aside from Dartmouth specifically, I missed the scenery and outdoor freedom/activities of Hanover a lot as well. Hanover is both surreal and quaint. No matter where you go or look there's something interesting to participate in. Some simple stuff I missed while being away: walking around beautiful Occom Pond, the local poster store, and spontaneous forest explorations. Those kinds of things you just can't replace!
There's a lot to love about Dartmouth and Hanover, but the things I've mentioned would have to be the top so far. I can feel that with each break away from campus I'm going to miss more and more!
In addition to blogging, I work as a Fellow for the Tucker Center, which focuses on promoting spiritual and ethical life on campus. As part of this role, I'm leading the Interfaith Alternative Spring Break Trip. Read on to learn more about my work!
