Dartmouth has a problem too many tall people. There are times when I look around '53 Commons or an athletic event and realize that I have no hope of seeing the trays of broccoli stir-fry or the probably unfortunate sports game because I'm trapped in a mob of humans of gargantuan size. The worst part about this abundance of seemingly herculean people occurred to me when I was home for the summer. I always considered myself tall until I came to Dartmouth. After being home for an entire term, hanging out with my standard-sized buddies and my unexceptionally tall family, I again came to that conclusion. Enter fall term. Recent athletic encounters and conversations with friends at school reminded me that, alas, I am of but average stature. I say conversations as well because the real change in my mindset from home to Dartmouth comes from the anxiety-producing responsibilities, status-centered accolades and persistent posturing that dictate our lives in this competitive environment. That, and all the super tall people.
In my experience, the college application process notwithstanding, high school life lacked the infatuation with applications and auditions that Dartmouth has latched on to. From orientation onward, students are encouraged to apply to myriad organizations with shockingly low acceptance rates. You go from being the successful, Ivy-bound collegian to getting rejected from a cappella, Ski Patrol, club sports and performance groups so that your taller compatriots can bask in the glory of Dartmouth's extracurricular universe. Come sophomore year, the much-maligned Greek scene becomes another competitive process. If I could count the number of times I've had to listen to people "rank" frats and sororities, I would probably have the math skills of Will Hunting. Not content with typical bacchanalia, we have even made drinking competitive. The intensity of pong games rivals my biggest basketball games in high school. Masters qualifiers have been known to ruin friendships. This incessant competitiveness that forms the core of our social life successfully produces a community that prizes posturing and breeds the anxiety of inadequacy.
I know that in reality I'm probably above the Dartmouth median in terms of height. The informal poll I took at 2 a.m. last night confirmed as much, despite a limited sample size. The disappointing thing that occasionally bubbles up, even senior year, is the crippling awareness of my average stature here when I was conditioned for most of my life to see myself as superior. There exists a constant sense of posturing at Dartmouth, beginning during your freshman orientation and ending with job searches for seniors that can be debilitating to those who are not comfortable in their own skins and confident in their own worth.
This is the beautiful and terrible duality of life in a competitive environment. You are continuously humbled, taught to be impressed by talents other than your own and pushed to work harder not just at school but also at life in general. The flip side is that you can lose the confidence that carried you to this point when you face a string of rejections or continuously measure yourself against the rest of your peers. Trying to stand as tall as all the mammoths here gets tiring, and anyone that says it doesn't is lying.
I realized I had fully bought into the "bubble" when I found that I had convinced myself to look at events happening on campus as the most important things in the world. That being a tour guide, in a frat or on a team mattered more than anything, and each success or failure had the potential to make me completely content or dismally depressed. I'm growing to realize that the competitions, posturing, victories and defeats all mean as much as you want them to which means that life at Dartmouth can mean virtually nothing or define a person's entire being. I think that we need to take a collective step back from competitiveness and stature-seeking and take life a little less seriously. Instead of trying to stand on your toes to see eye to eye with the people you think are impressive, take a seat, enjoy yourself and care less.
