At Dartmouth, some students delay their graduation due to reasons such as COVID-19, complications with their D-Plan, a desire to play an extra season with their sports team or other reasons. Although this decision can be filled with challenges, these students see the extra time in Hanover as worthwhile.
A common reason to take a fifth year at Dartmouth is to complete the Bachelor of Engineering, which requires nine courses beyond the engineering sciences major requirements for the Bachelor of Arts degree, according to the Dartmouth engineering website. These classes typically require one to three extra terms to complete, and students also have the option to use some of those courses for a master’s in engineering.
Jenna Martin ’24 is one of the Dartmouth students this year who will take extra terms to complete her master’s degree. Martin said she made this decision during her junior spring, a choice she said will give her more time to figure out her next steps.
“It’s given me the opportunity to do more internships this summer to know what I actually want to do,” she said. “I’m just able to test the waters a little more.”
Molly Knox ’23, another engineering student, said her decision to stay an extra year stemmed from exploring other majors during her four years. Knox expected to get her BE in four years, but after a brief trial of pre-med classes, she ended up needing one more term at Dartmouth to finish her BE.
In her senior year spring, Knox decided to spend two extra terms getting her master’s.
“It was a really strange feeling,” Knox said. “I still had all of the feelings of sadness and nostalgia. I mean, Dartmouth as I knew it was going to change.”
Knox still participated in all of the fun senior week traditions in between finals and graduation last spring — although her experience differed slightly from those departing Hanover.
“During senior week, everyone had that feeling of ‘this place, these people, the next time I come back will be for Homecoming,’ and I just never had that feeling of sadness,” Knox said.
Even though completing the Bachelor of Engineering is often the primary reason for a continued stay at Dartmouth, some engineering students are also on sports teams, so their fifth year allows them to keep competing.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic cutting her varsity rowing career short by a year, a fifth-year gives Martin more opportunities to race.
“Being able to race collegiately is something that I always wanted to do … I’ve really been enjoying this year, so it’s really awesome that I get one more year,” she said.
Other fifth-year students choose to stay at Dartmouth as a result of extra off-terms or even full gap-years after matriculation. This reason became especially common during COVID-19, as some students who attended Dartmouth during the pandemic elected to take a gap year so they would not lose another year on campus, leaving behind the class they matriculated with.
Harish Tekriwal ’21, decided during an off-term in his senior fall and did not return to Dartmouth until the next year to avoid taking another year of online classes, so he ultimately ended up graduating in 2022. He acknowledged the “weird[ness of] not graduating with [his] class.”
“Dartmouth puts such an emphasis on the year that you come in and the year you are supposed to graduate with,” he said. “I felt like I was in a limbo between being a ’21 and a ’22.”
Another student who took a gap year after matriculation, Margaret Bone ’24, shared this class identity crisis.
“It was really anxiety-producing at first,” she said. “I feel age-wise, I’m at a point where I’m ready to move onto the next chapter, but I have to wait a little bit more.”
One of the anticipated challenges of taking a fifth year or gap year is losing relationships within one’s class.
“All of my friends were going to leave, and I knew that all of the spaces that felt like my spaces weren’t going to be there anymore,” Knox said. “I personally am not a good long-distance communicator. I am really bad at scheduling phone calls, and when I’m stressed, I forget to respond to texts.”
Martin echoed this sentiment and is currently thinking about how to stay in touch with her ’24 friends next year.
“I could definitely see myself leaving Dartmouth’s campus more throughout the year, going to Boston or New York,” she said. “But I’m going to be living with five other ’24s who are also getting their master’s.”
Knox reflected that while her friend group has moved away from Dartmouth, there are still opportunities to find new communities at Dartmouth.
“My friend group in undergrad was very insular, which was great because we spent so much time together,” Knox said. “But now, I’ve been able to meet so many new people … there are so many communities that I can be a part of.”
Tekriwal had a slightly different experience: he spent his entire senior year away from other ’21s. He kept in touch with his closest friends who are ’21s, but he lost touch with most of his acquaintances. As a result, he became closer to many ’22s.
“Even post-grad, I became friends with people who were newly entering the real world, and that’s natural,” he said.
Tekriwal was active in two social clubs: his fraternity and the Mock Trial team. He feels that without those organizations, it would have been easy to feel alienated.
“I was lucky that I had a lot of great friends that were ’22s and ’23s,” he said. “I was heavily involved in two organizations, where I had a solid foundation for a social life. I could definitely imagine it being really difficult for people [who] don’t have that.”
Bone said she has some friends who are not ’24s and in her class who will get their master’s degrees at Thayer.
“One of my closest friends is doing a fifth year for engineering, but even if she wasn’t, the way that social structures work at Dartmouth, you are close with people in classes that aren’t your own,” Bone said.
Despite the anticipated challenges of staying at Dartmouth an extra year, both Knox and Tekriwal did not regret their choice.
“There’s this feeling associated with taking a fifth year that you’re going to be left behind, and everyone else will be so established in their lives,” Knox said. “But if there’s something you want to do for a fifth year, you shouldn’t shy away from it because you are scared of being left behind … Some people just started their jobs yesterday.”
Overall, for these students, it seems as though it’s not a burden to stay an extra year. To them, they only have four years at Dartmouth, so what’s one more?
“Dartmouth is an amazing place,” Bone said. “I consider myself lucky to stay one more year.”
