So," said my Harvard-educated dentist, coming into the small sterile room and walking over to the chair where I sat.
"Where do you go to school, Miss Mannix?"
"Dartmouth College."
"Really!?" he said, sounding shocked. I must look stupid; either that or very young, I thought. He went over to the sink to wash his hands and the hygienist helped him don his rubber gloves.
"So. You're a freshman?"
"Senior." I privately rejoiced. Young. I look young, not stupid.
"Really!?" He was shocked once again.
"And what are you studying there?" He said this with what I interpreted as a newfound respect in his voice.
"Psychology."
"Oh." There went the newfound respect. "Yes. All the girls want to major in Psychology. Want to figure out their boyfriends, I think."
"Mmm," I replied, not only because his gloved hands were probing around in my mouth but also because one fateful trip to the hair salon taught me the folly of engaging in debate with someone handling sharp metal instruments.
"Do you floss?"
"Yes."
"Really!?" It is fair to say that my visit with Dr. Ehrlich did not improve from there.
About a week later, I was shopping with my mother when we ran into Mrs. Coakley, my seventh grade math teacher. She asked me where I was going to school.
"Dartmouth College."
"Oh yes, that's right. Dartmouth. You know, I think you would have been better off at MIT. There are about three attractive women in the whole place, and you would have been the fourth. I met my husband in college, you know. It was love at first sight for me and my Danny, God rest his soul." There was a short awkward pause during which I had no idea what to say. Then she recovered her earlier train of thought.
"And what is your major?"
"Psychology," I answered.
"Oh. Psychology. Well that's interesting, anyway. And whatever are you going to do with that?"
"I'm not sure, actually."
"Poor thing," said Mrs. Coakley to my mother. "All that money for this. But don't feel too badly yet. That whole Dartmouth business might pay off later on. You never know."
I wished that I had a sharp metal object of my own.
"Laura," my mother said later that day, "Why is it that whenever I tell people that you are majoring in psychology they tend to laugh at me?"
"I don't know, Mom."
"Mrs. Harris said that psychology is the easiest major there is."
"Mrs. Harris often locks herself inside her own car and can't get out. Who do you trust, her or me?"
"Take it easy. I was just asking. But it does seem funny that everyone I see seems to think this way."
"Yeah, well, from now on tell people that I am majoring in fluvial geomorphology."
"What's that?"
"I don't know, and neither will anyone else, but there's no way they'll admit I'm majoring in something they've never heard of. See? And you wonder what psychology is good for."
One of the things I love about Dartmouth is that situations like the two I just described happen very infrequently among Dartmouth students. I could go up to 100 Dartmouth students and tell them I am doing a thesis on the breathing patterns of Shakespearean actors as compared with those of actors performing Pinter, and while I'm sure people would be curious about how I planned to do such a thing and perhaps puzzled about why I would want to, maybe two of them would be outwardly contemptuous of the idea. I have been spoiled by the average Dartmouth student's commitment to and respect for learning. Even if we are not widely considered an "intellectual" school, on the whole we respect other students' right to pursue the esoteric.
I once heard a Dartmouth student, now an alumnus, say that our time at Dartmouth is the last time we will be surrounded by intelligent people. Thinking this remark to be incredibly snotty, I told him so, contending that a Dartmouth degree is not proof of one's intelligence and that comments like his only prove the converse.
I still believe what I said. But our Dartmouth experience may be the last time we will have the opportunity to learn just for learning's sake. And no matter what well-meaning relatives, friends or acquaintances say, I intend to keep on doing just that.
