So you've only gone to the River three times, and the Copper Mines zero. Where are your fun summer fling(s)? Summer has definitely turned out differently -- much differently -- than many of us thought it would. All around you, friends are living out their sophomore summers: random midnight drives to Montreal, pursuing the frat hookup quota, playing copious amounts of pong -- and getting significantly better than you -- running 17 miles a day, finally hanging out, being wild, and taking only two classes to enable all of this behavior. What about the rest of us?
Turns out, others are in the same boat. When asking around if sophomore summer has been all that they hoped for, most responses were surprisingly similar to the following: "It's been a little disappointing. Sophomore summer is built up so much, but in reality, it's just another Dartmouth term." Many people take on extra responsibilities during sophomore summer, using the opportunity of being the only class on campus to learn how to run a campus club or organize a big event, but sometimes this added responsibility detracts from stereotypical summer fun. "I've been way more busy with extra-curriculars and classes than I thought I would be," said one very busy '10. "I haven't had the chance to do anything that is really summer-ish."
Others echoed these thoughts, noting that summer hasn't felt like summer at all: "It's been the same. It's still a lot of work. Everyone is still very intense about what they do, busy running around from place to place." A student transferring here for the Summer term reflected that, "One thing that has disappointed me at Dartmouth is the lack of community during Summer term. It's been really hard to get people together for study groups because classes are graded on a curve. It's just felt much more cutthroat than it needs to be."
A constant complaint is the lack of food options, and the 'DDS dead zone' from 3 to 5 p.m. on weekends, which, honestly, is when most of us are waking up and looking for breakfast. Factor in the constantly malfunctioning Greenprint machines and that stapler and hole punch that never seem to work in the library, and summer seems to be a little less user-friendly than other terms.
There are, however, some students who have been living up to the reputation of sophomore summer, perhaps summing it up best by saying that they're "so not stressed to the point of being stressed." Athletes especially are experiencing a liberating amount of free time without rigorous practice schedules, and those taking two classes are definitely enjoying themselves. One friend joked: "I will cry when it ends and I am taking three classes again."
But overall, the most common response to how sophomore summer will be remembered relates to our two pillars of life here in Hanover: the great outdoors, and the great friends you will make here. "I've been doing a lot more outdoorsy things than usual, and just spending a lot more time getting closer with my friends," explains one wisdom-spewing classmate.
In some ways, sophomore summer is reminiscent of high school circa junior year/senior year -- when you were secure about who your friends were and friendly with everyone in your grade -- but without the security of knowing you'd be able to ditch everyone in a few years and go to college. Instead, we ditch college to go start a real life.
The correlation to high school is especially due to the recent development of everyone knowing everything about everyone they know, and even things about people they don't know. Recently, certain Mirror writers came upon an embarrassingly incestuous and intricate hook-up web (remember those things from high school??) compiled by an acquaintance. Well, the administration was right about one thing regarding Summer term -- the class takes the opportunity to bond, in certain ways.
Quantifying such (ahem) bondage seems to be a recurrent theme at Dartmouth. For a liberal arts school (albeit an Ivy League one), we seem to love numbers " or at least defining ourselves by them. You played how many games last night? And that many shots? Booted twice? And you hooked up with him again? What is that, the third time? You two are so dating! But can we quantify our summer experience the same way we do a Saturday night?
Asking around for the defining aspects of sophomore summer, we came upon more numbers: hanging out on the dock at least twice a week, going on a four-day backpacking trip, hiking the 50, grilling multiple times a week, trips to Six Flags, cooking dinner with four friends, ten-mile bike rides.
But quantity is often trounced by quality, and that brings us to the question: exactly how much closer is our class after the past eight weeks? One friend said, "Sophomore summer's been amazing, mostly because one of the best things has been just meeting all kinds of new people in our own grade."
We've all definitely met people (mostly '10s) who we've never known before, but -- and here's sort of a weird question -- is it for the better? Does it 'count' as knowing someone if you don't speak above ground level? Is it weird to be in "SUMMER 08XXX" Facebook albums with people you've met but don't really know? Is it worth it to make all these "new friends"? And if we barely acknowledge each other now, what will it matter after your Fall transfer term and their Winter off term?
We wonder how much our college experiences and legacies will follow us after graduation, much less after sophomore summer. Will you always know X boy as 'that guy who I played pong against once in Phi Delt'? Although, then again, if not for Summer, you probably never would have played pong against him at all. Didn't Shakespeare once postulate: It is better to have played and lost then never to have played at all? (Whatever, something like that, that Shakespeare class was over-enrolled anyway.)
What if you knew his name before and he probably knew yours, but you had never been formally introduced or been in a social situation together to acknowledge each others' existence? And finally, is this sort of social interaction at all significant? Seventeen years later, when we're all making a median income of $134,000+ (and then factor in inflation), will the newest CIO of Goldman remember that you were in his Econ class freshman winter? Well... maybe he'll remember if you're his boss. Haha. Kidding.
But in all seriousness, how transient are our interactions here? Even though we know we're all connected by one or two degrees, we rarely acknowledge it. And as we're trying to make the most of our last two weeks of sophomore summer, maybe we should reflect back on our new friendships just as much as those barbecues, bike rides and late-night essay-writing sessions in the library. Quickly, before those squirmy '12s flood into what has become our college.
