This article is featured in the 2025 Winter Carnival Edition.
I began my senior year at Dartmouth incredibly worried that I would be caught up in all of the “lasts.” I was afraid of preemptively mourning all of the special traditions I have come to cherish: my last time seeing the leaves turn for the vibrant fall foliage; my last time enjoying Homecoming as an undergraduate; my last snowball fight, Winter Carnival weekend and Green Key performance — the last of all traditions that define the seasons here at Dartmouth.
All of these moments that I hadn’t yet experienced for a final time seemed to flash before my eyes. Even before they had happened, I felt crushed by an imaginary, self-imposed weight to savor them before they slipped away. I could envision each one passing me by while I tried my best to cherish them, ultimately leaving me disappointed when they failed to meet my own lofty expectations.
While it is natural to feel disappointed when reality fails to match presumptions, I have come to realize that this line of thinking is often pointless. There is an aspect of realism that is necessary in protecting your own heart. When you place an exorbitant amount of pressure on a situation to be perfect, you miss out on what is actually happening around you. Similarly, if you place such high importance on only the key events, you risk overlooking the ordinary moments — the ones that often matter the most.
In that vein, I’ve realized that I’ve taken my time at Dartmouth for granted. Now that I’m older and more settled on campus, it’s only natural that I’ve expressed less gratitude for my time here. This became especially clear, recently, when I took a trip to Burlington, Vt., to visit a friend who attends the University of Vermont. While I deeply enjoyed my time visiting her, I couldn’t help but think about how much our college experiences have varied.
People joke that Dartmouth is like a cult, tucked away in the woods with its own slang and odd traditions. In many ways, those jokes have a hint of truth to them. We dance around an enormous bonfire at Homecoming and march together holding candles for the Candlelight Ceremony at the start of our freshman fall. We build towering snow sculptures and willingly plunge into freezing water for the Polar Plunge. We sort ourselves into social groups through clubs, Greek spaces and senior societies. We even carry canes at graduation that mark our secret alliances. We stratify and stratify, but through this, we seem to grow closer.
Living at Dartmouth has become second nature to me — a comfortable routine shaped by time and familiarity. But what if I approached the rest of my time here differently? What if I still walked around in awe of our campus’s beauty, like I used to freshman year? What if I still delighted in seeing the seasons change — something that had once felt magical for a student hailing from Florida? I certainly take for granted being able to walk down the street and recognize the faces of the next four people who walk past me.
It can be challenging to find the time to pause and feel gratitude for how fortunate we are to be students in Hanover. This place has become a second home to me, and I find myself aching to return whenever I am away. How lucky are we to be able to spend four years here, witness the town’s beautiful sunsets and live within walking distance of all of our friends? How lucky are we to live in such a beautiful small town, to walk down the ever-so-quaint Main Street and be immersed in the trees? How lucky are we to be challenged academically — to be introduced to the intellectual conversations that scholars have begun long before us and will continue long after?
But all of this gratitude also has limits. Appreciation is not the same as idolization; there’s a crucial distinction. Idolization is a glorified form of appreciation — a complete acceptance of someone or something. In reality, full appreciation requires a certain nuance in which you simultaneously see the best and worst parts of someone or something. It is a more realistic form of gratitude and shows a deeper level of care and optimism that you believe things could be better. I can be grateful for Dartmouth while still recognizing that it is far from perfect. While there are a million things that I love about this campus, there are a million more that I wish I could change.
I often wish that the pace of our coursework was slower so that I could linger with my newfound knowledge a little while longer. I wish that we took more academic — and career-related! — risks. Sometimes, I feel us Dartmouth students forget that the goal of our education is to learn, which means potentially failing in the process. Lastly, I wish that students had more of a say in decision-making on campus. Change should be a process in which students are actively consulted and considered, not one where new developments are thrust upon us. After all, we know the undergraduate experience better than anyone else.
At the same time, it’s important to balance our desire for change with an appreciation for what we already have. You can work toward building a better future, but it starts with deeply understanding the present. You can learn to appreciate everything that has brought you to this moment and the good work that the people before you have already done. You can take the time to laugh deeply with those who you love. You can take a moment to stop and feel the sun on your face.
