In a dimly lit room in Casque and Gauntlet on Monday, students sat in a circle of couches eating pulled pork sandwiches and discussing life at the College versus life in the "real world."
The event, titled "Dartmouth and The Real World': Negotiating the Gap," was one of the weekly dinner discussions hosted by Women's Forum, a group that focuses on creating a safe space to foster dialogue of different issues on campus.
Maia Matsushita '13 told personal stories and spoke about her views on the transition between life at Dartmouth and beyond.
Matsushita said Dartmouth is defined by the people who attend. She spoke of a Dartmouth friend who called her because he was lonely while on campus the summer after his freshman year, and he said "I realized that I love Dartmouth and that Dartmouth is not here it's where all of you are."
Matsushita found this to be true while she studied on a foreign study program in New Zealand.
While being away from her friends and extracurriculars allowed her to focus on her studies, she did not realize how much she missed her close friends until a student on the program gave her a hug.
Matsushita said that she does not like the idea of distinguishing Dartmouth and "the real world" because the distinction allows people to make excuses for engaging in inappropriate actions at the College.
"This is the real world when we are here and the time that we are here," she said.
After speeches from Matsushita and Sophie Choi '14, students engaged in an open discussion.
Carla Sung Ah Yoon '15 said that as an international student, she is aware of how students' diverse backgrounds can influence their experience at the College.
"A lot of people at Dartmouth come from different backgrounds, and sometimes you have to explain the most basic concepts to them, like mac and cheese," she said.
Yoon said that students' identities are not always solidified at Dartmouth,
"You can always change between who you are and become the person you want to be," Yoon said.
Moulshri Mohan '15, however, said that Dartmouth opens up a new space for students to define themselves.
"I think college is a lot about defining yourself as an individual and out of the framework from your family," she said.
As the differences in identities at school and at other places were discussed, Mahnum Shahzad '15 posed the question "How do you know which one is really you?"
Gillian O'Connell '15 said that while her identity at home felt static, she felt that she was able to reemphasize certain values that were important to her at Dartmouth.
"The way I think about place and how it interacts with my identity is that I think about how place pulls out a certain part of my identity," she said.
Women's Forum offers weekly dinner discussions and study breaks on topics ranging from women in comedy to the meaning of happiness, co-director Meg Heisler '14 said.
Erin Klein '13 founded Women's Forum in the spring of 2012.
"After attending a discussion about whether all women of Dartmouth are the same, I was interested in creating a space where women of all classes, backgrounds, affiliation, interests and years could come together for meaningful discussion," Klein said.
O'Connell said she thought the space was important to foster relationships among women all over campus and particularly wanted to give underclassmen the opportunity to get advice from upperclassman.
"There is really no other space for women to come together across all different sections of campus and just relax and not have to do something and not have a commitment to it and just talk," Heisler said.
Heisler said the group helps to foster a space for members of the Dartmouth community to talk about important issues.
"When it comes to sharing about more personal things, people tend to shy away from telling those stories unless they have been explicitly asked," she said.
