Luke Grayson '25 remembers the day that an issue of 3D magazine landed on the doorstep of his home in a small town in northeastern England. "I was honestly pretty shocked that it was sent all the way to the U.K.," Luke recalls. "It was this physical catalog of life at Dartmouth that helped me gain insight into the student experience."
The first member of his family to attend college, Luke became interested in studying in the United States when he joined Sutton Trust, a foundation that aims to foster social mobility by bulldozing economic barriers to educational success. "I grew up in a small seaside town whose industry centered around coal mining through the '90s," Luke says. "Education was never a big focus in the area. I always wanted to go somewhere where I could find more room to grow."
Sutton Trust helped Luke find colleges and universities that fit his interests and could support his financial need. Dartmouth stood out for its commitment to meet 100% of demonstrated financial need for all students—regardless of citizenship. "That's one of the central reasons I'm at Dartmouth today," Luke says.
The concept of a liberal arts college was unfamiliar to Luke until he discovered Dartmouth. In describing the value of a liberal arts education, Luke underscores its emphasis on ensuring that students learn how to think—often by encouraging them to take coursework that spans a wide variety of disciplines.
"Imagine sitting at a dinner table with history's greatest scholars," he says. "The product of a liberal arts education is a person who could sit at the head of such a table and quite comfortably take on any and all of the attending party in enthusiastic conversation, no matter the topic. I arrived at Dartmouth intending to major in engineering, but the flexible liberal arts system helped me discover subjects I'd never considered before."
Luke now plans to pursue an economics major and has taken classes in computer science, Italian, history, linguistics, and more. But a highly-immersive living and learning environment in the U.S., he says, has "opened up so many opportunities to me outside of the classroom." He joined the Rockefeller Center's Global Leadership Program (RGLP), a nine-week experiential learning program that culminates in an all-expenses-paid immersion trip to Boston or Montreal. He also embraced his adventurous side by tackling The Fifty, a hallowed Dartmouth tradition. Teams of students hike a 53.5-mile stretch of the Appalachian Trail as fellow students support and cheer them along the way. The mountainous path that extends from Georgia to Maine passes right through downtown Hanover.
Luke says the sense of community he's felt at Dartmouth has made it feel like a second home. "There's such an intense togetherness on campus," Luke says. "As an international student, I've found such a strong community of friends to help me through. Dartmouth has allowed me the option of redefining myself."
Photograph by Don Hamerman
