Dartmouth has a distinctive year-round quarter system—the D-Plan—that enables students to customize their individual academic calendars across four years. Dartmouth offers four, 10-week academic terms per year that loosely align with the four seasons. Within some guidelines, students choose how—and where—they'll spend each of those terms, whether taking classes in Hanover, studying away on an off-campus program, or embarking on a "leave term" to pursue an internship, research, creative pursuit, or time off. Here, Rujuta Pandit '24 shares snapshots drawn from her D-Plan, organized by season.
FALL
During my first-year fall, I took Multivariable Calculus, Introduction to Psychology, and my first-year writing class, a course called Social Media and You. I started college during the COVID-19 pandemic, so I met many of my current close friends in my first-year dorm and through outdoor activities like kayaking on the Connecticut River, hiking Gile Mountain, and walking around Occom Pond.
During my sophomore fall, I really began to feel at home at Dartmouth. I joined a sorority, met new friends in classes, and experienced the first of many homecoming bonfires and football games.
Embracing the flexible schedule of the D-Plan, I spent my junior fall in Washington, D.C. interning at the White House Council on Environmental Quality. At CEQ, I focused on the Net-Zero Emissions Supply Chains portfolio, writing policy memos and assisting with the Inflation Reduction Act implementation process. I also took my cousin trick-or-treating at the White House, watched the Thanksgiving turkey pardoning live, and attended conferences and events all over D.C.
WINTER
I love winter in New Hampshire, and low-cost equipment rentals from the Dartmouth Outing Club have made it easy to embrace the snowy outdoors. During sophomore winter, my friends and I sledded, ice skated, and enjoyed the huge piles of snow all across campus. That same term, I took Science Policy and Diplomacy with Professor Melody Burkins. The course introduced me to the idea of science and environmental communication and helped me decide to concentrate in environmental engineering. Professor Burkins became a mentor for me beyond the classroom, and I even took her to Pine Restaurant on Dartmouth's dime through the Take a Faculty Member to Breakfast or Lunch program.
Coming from Chicago, I was a bit more prepared for the early sunsets and cold weather than some of my friends from the southern hemisphere, but I've always enjoyed how the campus seems to settle in for the term. Senior winter, I took skiing lessons at the Dartmouth Skiway, the College-owned ski mountain just a short drive from campus.
SPRING
I always look forward to watching the campus evolve from stick season to springtime. Green Key weekend, an annual event featuring live music and free food, is easily my favorite of the year. It's a great moment to step back and relax before exams commence. I've taken some of my favorite classes in the spring, including Global Health and Society during my sophomore spring. My classmates and I learned about various types of health conditions, including vector-borne illnesses like Zika and Lyme and non-communicable diseases such as obesity and drug abuse, and analyzed them through a political ecology lens.
By the end of the spring, I usually find myself spending warm days walking through Pine Park or lying on the docks by the Connecticut River with friends after they open for the season. During senior spring, I plan to visit local farmers markets and spread a blanket out on the Green during the first few days of warmth. Despite the busy academic terms, spring reminds me of how lucky I am to attend school in a place where I can calm myself and connect with nature.
SUMMER
During my first-year summer, I interned at a think tank through the Rockefeller Center's First-Year Fellows Program, which places students in policy internships with alumni mentors in Washington, D.C. That internship transformed my path at Dartmouth and helped me decide to modify my degree with public policy.
For me, sophomore summer encapsulated the best that Dartmouth and the Upper Valley region of Vermont and New Hampshire has to offer. I really enjoyed living off-campus in a house with friends, watching Fourth of July fireworks over the Connecticut River, and visiting diners and farmers markets.
Building on research I'd done with engineering professor Mark Laser, I spent my junior summer in Uganda with a group of students from my Dartmouth Humanitarian Engineering team and our faculty advisor from the Irving Institute for Energy and Society. There, we helped develop a community-scale solar water heating system to replace polluting firewood cookstoves. I bartered with Ugandan salesmen, became an expert on wrenches of different sizes and uses, and most important, witnessed sustainable development first hand.
Illustration by Federuca Bordoni
