Congratulations! Getting here can’t have been easy — from the college applications process to sticking out senior spring to literally winding your way through the woods on your drive to Dartmouth, it’s been a long road. Now that your freshman fall is around the corner, it’s time to get pumped for all the wonder ful experiences ahead: new people, countless oppor tunities and an amazing academic experience are all near on the horizon.
It’s also impor tant to remember, though, that it won’t all be easy, and the pieces might not fall into place exactly where or when you expect them to. Freshman fall is an incredibly exciting time, but it can also be an incredibly lonely time. While you’ll experience success here on campus, it’s also likely that you’ll experience failure and rejection. Some classes will leave you inspired and others will turn you off from depar tments for good. The social scene might open venues for new friendships and even romances, but you might also be let down or grossed out by the reality of Dartmouth’s frat-basement-dominated nightlife.
The point is: all of these experiences are O.K., normal and maybe even per vasive. It’s just that in the hectic frenzy that is fall term, we’re oftentimes so excited about welcoming you onto campus that we fail to let you in on this hush-hush, less-than- picture-per fect side of adjusting to college. So that’s what this article is all about: five students sharing stories of how they did and continue to do Dartmouth “wrong,” yet have still managed to make it work in their favor. And while these five stories can’t speak touniversal Dartmouth experiences, they can offer you at least a few narratives that defy the mainstream story of what it means to “do Dartmouth right.” So, if things do get tough or you ever feel out of place: you’re not alone.
Dondei Dean ’17 on Finding Community
For some students, it’s easy to find a sense of community from the get-go, whether it’s a club or varsity team, a freshman floor or their first-year trip. Other times, finding a place where you really feel like you belong can be an ongoing, even somewhat lonely search.
Dondei Dean ’17 identifies herself as a member of a few different communities here on campus. She sees herself as a member of the broader community of the Class of 2017, as well as a member of the black community, the queer community, Amarna and the arts community at Dartmouth. But, she said, it took a while to find comfort and a sense of home in those spaces.
“My freshman year I felt really, really isolated, specifically because I chose not to participate in the Greek scene,” Dean said. “Not just not rushing, but also just generally avoiding Frat Row and not going to parties.”
For Dean, finding her place in these communities required getting to know other individuals who were a part of them and participating in events run by these groups. For example, Dean said that she most identified with the black community at Dar tmouth when she participated in the“Freedom Budget” sit-in and other types of activism on campus.
Similarly, Dean began attending Tee and Tea at the T, a weekly get-together for queer students at the Triangle House, a Living Learning Community devoted to fostering community and well-being among LGBTQ+ students. Showing up for the event, Dean said, was one part of forging connections in the queer community.
Dean’s advice for ’19s is to “keep track of areas in your life where you feel disappointed.”
At the end of freshman fall, Dean said, she found herself looking for fellow queer people of color and for a sense of community and belonging at Dartmouth outside of the Greek scene.
“I realized that disappointment is another form of knowing what you want,” Dean said. With this in mind, she decided to take responsibility and actively seek out places where she could feel comfortable, whether that meant talking to people by word of mouth or paying more attention to emailsfrom campus events.
“If you can really identify the placeswhere you feel empty or a lack of something,” she said, “then it’ll help you when you do stumble across them.”
Avery Feingold '17 on Navigating Academics
Maybe you’ve known exactly what you wanted to do with the rest of your life since age four. Or maybe you have no clue whatsoever, and even choosing your first three classes at Dartmouth seems likea momentous task. That’s O.K. — many students, including Avery Feingold ’17, remain undecided about their majors and are still perfectly on track for graduation.
Coming into Dartmouth, Feingold said, “I had absolutely no idea what I wanted to be. I was between history, English, math, theatre and economics, more or less.”
Today, Feingold is still undeclared.
“I’m sort of on my way to a math major, and beyond that still kind of wishing I could change it all up and become a history major,” Feingold said. “But I haven’t taken a history class yet, so we’ll see.”
Looking back, Feingold said he would take more introductor y classes in a broader array of departments rather than taking higher-level classes from the start.
For incoming freshman who might relate to his experience, Feingold says: “Dartmouth is an opportunity to go broad rather than deep, and to really take advantage of that aspect of the liberal arts education.”
Feingold cautioned incoming students not to worry too much about the direct applicability of what they learn in the classroom, because many courses teach on a deeper level.
“It’s easy to feel the need to be an expert about something because you see people around you who are very good at specific things,” Feingold said. But, he said, it’s im- portant to remember that “you’re not here to learn super applicable, super important skills, so much as you’re here to become broadly educated.”
With that in mind, he suggests taking fun and interesting classes freshman year, and saving the pre-professional work for graduate school.
Hannah Solomon ’17 on Getting Social without Going Greek
Until Homecoming weekend is through, you’ll have only limited access to Greek spaces, and for your first year, rushing won’t even be an option. That being said, Greek life will be something you can choose whether or not to engage with pretty much from the get-go, and you’ll soon come to find that the majority of students do choose to participate in the Greek scene. But just because you hang out in fraternity basements doesn’t mean you’re obligated to rush, or to drink. Take it from Hannah Solomon ’17, who frequents Greek spaces but remains unaf filiated and chooses not to drink alcohol.
Solomon made the decision not to rush before she even got to Dartmouth, she said. Arriving on campus, she added, only reaffirmed her decision to stay unaffiliated. Still, she said, she spends a lot of time in fraternities and most of her close male friends did end up affiliated. Solomon said that even though she is unaffiliated, she still ends up playing a lot of pong, though she opts for water rather than beer.
“I think there’s pressure for everybody to go Greek, just as there’s sort of pressure for everybody to join into this highly alcohol-based social scene,” Solomon said. “But it was something that I was personally O.K. with ignoring.”
During the actual process of women’s rush, however, Solomon did momentarily question her decision, wondering where she’d hang out if all her friends joined houses.
“That was something that did not turn out to be an issue,” Solomon said.
One piece of advice from Solomon is to find “alternative social spaces where you feel comfor table.”
“The DOC was huge for that, for me,” Solomon said. “It sor t of gave me something to fall back on if I ever felt that I was miss- ing out somehow.”
And if you’re not looking to join a Greek house or prefer not to drink—don’t worry, Solomon said.
“Find people who are supportive of you and your own decisions and find other things that you care about,” Solomon said. “Decide what’s most important to you, what’s most impor tant to your identity.”
If you don’t follow the mainstream culture of going Greek and drinking, “people tend to respect that decision,” she said.
Eliza Grainger ’17 on Dealing with Rejection
Another issue that really strikes a chord with Dar tmouth students, especially first-year students, is that of rejection. After being high achievers all our lives, it’s not always easy to adjust to a setting brimming with people who’ve grown up being the best within their home communities at whatever they do. Inevitably, then, many students encounter rejection from groups, clubs and teams during their first few weeks at Dartmouth.
But if that happens to you, don’t fret — the lost opportunity to do one thing might just be another open door in disguise.
Take Eliza Grainger ’17 for example. Freshman fall, she tried out for every a cappella group and club soccer. She also gave club rugby and women’s rowing a try. In the spring, she applied to be a tour guide and for the Student and Presidential Committee on Sexual Assault. Sophomore winter, she applied for jobs on campus, thePresidential Scholars program and various research positions.
None of these opportunities worked out, but a few others did.
Grainger did get into Outdoor Leadership Experience and Ski Patrol freshman fall. In addition, she also joined non-competitive groups, including various sub-clubs through the DOC.
Despite these successes, dealing with rejection wasn’t easy.
“I was pretty bitter about the a cappella thing because I’d gone to a performance choir school for three years and I knew music very well,” Grainger said.
But, she added, there are plenty of opportunities freshman fall, and it’s best to come in without expectations of joining certain groups and activities.
“Everyone here is really good at some- thing,” Grainger said. Experiences of failure, she said, “are opportunities to grow and try things that you didn’t think you would necessarily get into.”
If she could do it over again, Grainger added, she would seek out more activities outside of her comfor t zone.
“I think I would’ve joined some very random groups,” she said.
Grainger’s advice: “Don’t come in with expectations. Try new things. Don’t get beaten down when you don’t end up being the best.”
Rachel Patel ’17 on Pressure to Party
You’ve probably learned by now that every term at Dartmouth, we have “big weekends” to celebrate Homecoming, Winter Carnival and Green Key. On the surface, these weekends seem to be a time when literally ever yone on campus is out and about, socializing and partying. But not all students buy into the culture ofbig weekends. Many, like Rachel Patel ’17, choose to have a more low-key experience despite the perceived pressure to party.
“I think there’s a lot of pressure for people to feel like they need to be having fun during big weekends,” Patel said. “There’s a lot of buildup to these big weekends, and people can often feel disappointed when they don’t live up to their expectations.”
Freshman year, she said, especially during Green Key, Patel experienced a pressure to go out, as it seemed everyone else was doing so.
“At this point I’m kind of over it,” she said. “I’m more comfortable staying in or studying if I need to.”
Nowadays, Patel treats these times just like any old weekend on campus. She makes sure to get her schoolwork out of the way and set aside time to spend with friends, regardless of whether she decides to go out.
Patel recommends that you try not to let the pressure from everyone else get to you.
“Do whatever you want to with your friends,” she said. “You’ll probably have a better time doing that than doing what you think you should be doing.”
From reading this, you’ve probably figured out that a lot of changes are coming your way and things might not unfold according to plan. There is no “right” way to do Dartmouth, which is a blessing and a curse. You’re going to have ups and downs, but in the end you have the power to define your Dartmouth experience and make it your own.
Despite the interviewees’ initial (and current) struggles in some areas, they’re all still here and thriving. And you will be too — just keep an open mind, figure out what matters to you and you’ll find a way to make it happen.
