In a town where the acronym "SEC'' calls to mind not the Securities and Exchange Commission but the Southeastern Conference, I began a long way from Hanover in both location and state of mind. My knowledge of "the North'' was limited to a childhood trip to New York, which was spent, on my mother's insistence, searching for our family name at Ellis Island and looking at the faberg eggs in the Forbes Museum. I imagined Dartmouth as a place where people had earnest conversations about things that interested them, without being burdened by high school insecurities.
That Dartmouth exists, but it wasn't quite there during freshman year.
The image with which I was met instead was a group of rainbow-haired hippies teaching awkward freshmen how to do the first of Soulja Boy's far too numerous songs-with-a-dance. All I could think was, "Oh G-d." Do they know that the "cape'' part is about jizzing on someone's sheets as a revenge plot?
Probably not.
I scanned our spandexed guides for a sign that all this dancing was some big trick. The Croo members seemed too welcoming for such cruelty, but I remained suspicious. Little did I know that upperclassmen think this is "adorable'' and "reminiscent of their former, more innocent selves'' I was too busy being self-conscious to notice.
After DOC trips I returned to a campus orgy. Orientation was supposed to be fun, but I wasn't sure if that meant more for the older guys trying to catch the newbies off-guard with their shiny pecs or for me. It was glorious and awful.
Also, what was with everyone trying to work on Wall Street? Wasn't "medicine'' supposed to be the declared goal of most college freshmen? How did I arrive at this alternate universe where people with tricolor hair have so much cach? Wasn't learning supposed to be the ultimate goal of a liberal arts education? Why does everyone feel pressured to have his name on committees that don't do anything but distribute take-out Chinese food at meetings? They're not really doing anything to assuage global poverty besides making themselves feel good for being socially conscious.
I was indignant. This wasn't not what college was about. It couldn't be. College was about really doing things, whatever that meant.
When I got away from campus on my Foreign Study Programs, aside from learning how much the rest of the world feels America has fallen short of its sales pitch, I grew to appreciate some of the finer things my slovenly Dartmouth self has come to feel entitled to. Like virtually unlimited printing on double-sided paper, wireless internet and access to professors. Plus, wearing sweatpants.
Since starting college my expectations have descended to a more realistic plane. Sure, I sometimes feel nostalgic for that old, frustrated self. In some senses, it was more noble than the one which accepts that being an adult means making compromises. But, alright, so Dartmouth is careerist. Post-2008, I'm hoping that this means someone will hire me after I graduate...right? Right?
