For many Dartmouth students, winterim — the College’s extended winter break, lasting from late November until early January — provides a much-needed opportunity to relax at home. Some may binge-watch Netflix. Others sleep until noon. The more ambitious might do research or work domestic jobs and internships.
But some spend the extended winter break farther from home. Through Dartmouth-sponsored or -affiliated trips, students can spend their nearly six-week break abroad — presenting their biology research in India or implementing their economics projects in Peru, among other options. According to the Dartmouth timetable, more than 60 students chose to spend their break on College trips this winterim.
Some academic departments arrange winterim abroad excursions as extensions of fall term classes. For example, the Asian societies, cultures and languages department offers a fall-winterim sequence of two classes that ultimately bring students to Vietnam. During the fall, 23 students took ASCL 70.22, “Developing Vietnam: History, Environment and Culture.” Students then embarked on a three-week educational experience in Vietnam — titled ASCL 59.04, “Foreign Study in Vietnam” — held this year from Nov. 30 to Dec. 22.
According to the fall course’s description, students in ASCL 70.22 worked on a small group research project focused on an “aspect of development” — including development across social, economic and environmental areas — in southern Vietnam with students from Fulbright University Vietnam, located in Ho Chi Minh City. Christian Chantayan ’26 said he and his group researched “the politics behind Vietnam’s rising semiconductor industry.” During their time in Vietnam, his team reached out to stakeholders across “public, private and third sectors” and conducted interviews, according to Chantayan. His group then created a 25-page final paper and documentary discussing their findings.
Although the trip took place during a break, Chantayan emphasized that the experience wasn’t simply a relaxing, “free trip to Vietnam.” Despite the “intensive” nature of the trip, Chantayan ultimately found it “rewarding.”
He said he enjoyed that the trip offered him the chance to go abroad “for more than a weekend” without having to miss out on the excitement of being on campus — ultimately calling it “the best [of both] worlds.”
The economics department also offered a course last fall — ECON 70, “Immersion Experience in Applied Economics and Policy” — that culminated in an international trip, this time to Peru. According to participant André Bouzid ’25, the professor divided the class into groups during the fall term and assigned each a specific sector on which to focus for a research project. Projects covered subjects such as agriculture, tourism and education, according to Bouzid.
Bouzid said his group focused on tourism, partnering with Peru’s official tourism office, Promperú, to research how marketing campaigns can be used effectively to increase tourist numbers.
In addition to his group project research, Bouzid also highlighted the memories that he made with peers on the trip. For example, he said his favorite moment from the trip was sandboarding with his classmates and professor in a small town in Peru.
“As a senior, you realize that there isn’t much time left at Dartmouth,” Bouzid said. “I think everyone came back from that evening being very … grateful and happy to be together, and I think that was a real highlight of the trip.”
ECON 70 student Katherine Stidolph ’25 also found sandboarding to be the highlight of the trip, explaining that it was a “great moment” because everyone was “so happy to be there.” She also pointed to cultural exchange as a motivator for participating in the trip, explaining that she had never previously visited South America.
“When I applied, I thought it was really cool that I’d be able to go to … a place that was so unfamiliar to [me],” Stidolph said. “It’s a completely different cultural and social makeup.”
The biological sciences department also offered a class with a winterim component — students in BIOL 70, “Biologic Lessons of the Eye,” took a trip to Madurai in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, according to trip participant Alannah McShine ’25.
McShine said students in the class picked research topics related to the “different diseases” discussed in the class — such as retinoblastoma — and then developed a research proposal for an experiment. After working on the project throughout the fall term, class members then presented their projects to researchers at the Aravind Medical Research Foundation, according to McShine.
Academic departments are not the only College organizations that conduct winterim trips. According to Fellow Prescott Herzog ’25, the War and Peace Fellows program, which is operated by the Dickey Center for International Understanding, takes selected students on an international winterim trip each year. Herzog said past years’ cohorts have traveled to Israel and the West Bank, as well as Amsterdam. This year, 13 fellows and three Dickey Center-affiliated staff members traveled to Japan and South Korea, where they attended meetings with groups like Japan’s Self-Defense Forces and the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Seoul, according to Herzog.
Fellow Natalie Keim ’25, who joined the program during her sophomore year, said this was her first time traveling internationally with the Fellows. She said the Fellows spent time during the trip attending “meetings with policymakers, politicians [and] diplomats” and asking questions about “their perspectives about trilateral relations” between Japan, South Korea and the United States.
Herzog said the trip catered to his academic interest in U.S. foreign policy and social movements in East Asia.
“I’ve never been to East Asia before even though I’ve done … academic work on [United States] Indo-Pacific policy,” Herzog said. “I’m working on my thesis, which is [partially] about [United States]-East Asia policy, so I thought this was … a once-in-a-lifetime experience.”
In addition to these trips, the German Studies department and the Jewish Studies program offered a joint, three-week winterim trip to Berlin. During the fall term, students took JWST 34.03/GERM 44.06, “The History of Jews in Germany (Migration and Memory),” which focused on the history of Jews in Berlin from the late eighteenth century to the present, according to the Guarini Institute for International Education.
While each trip featured varied locations and topics, participants across the board ultimately spoke highly of their winterim travel experiences. McShine said her favorite part of her trip to India was getting to meet local students who were doing a research program at the Aravind Medical Research Foundation.
“Their research was super fascinating, and they were all so patient and explain[ed] everything … twice if I didn’t understand it,” McShine said. “It was also really cool to see some of the cultural differences in science education in America versus India.”
Similarly, Herzog also said he appreciated meeting locals — especially an atomic bomb survivor in Hiroshima — on the War and Peace Fellows trip. According to Herzog, the speaker told students to “never work for war.”
“I feel like [that quote] was just really impactful in terms of thinking about what I want to do after Dartmouth,” Herzog said.
When asked if he would recommend a winterim trip to other Dartmouth students, Chantayan gave a wholehearted yes.
“I think as an institution, what Dartmouth can do best is create more winterim trips,” Chantayan said. “Even if you are somebody who might not seem intensely interested in the subject at first, I think doing this study abroad is an exciting window into not just a new field, but into a different culture.”
