Beyond the Bubble
Last spring, a group of friends and I decided it was time to escape the slightly suffocating bubble of Dartmouth life and take a weekend trip to Montreal. Our first night there, we embraced our liberation from the overwhelming intimacy of a 4200-student community and stepped into a lively nightclub -- only to immediately realize that, even in a city with hundreds of clubs and over 1.5 million people, we were surrounded by a pack of at least 20 fellow Dartmouth students. The lyrics of the final Dimensions show song, "You can run, you can hide, but you can't escape Dartmouth" raced through my mind.
After studying in Paris last winter, I'm currently working in New York for the fall and I wanted to preface any off-term sharing with that modified Enrique Iglesias warning. As comforting or disappointing as it may be, chances are, you'll be confronted with someone or something connected to Dartmouth during your journeys off campus, especially if you plan to work in New York or Boston.
That being said, living independently outside of Hanover can be a bit of a culture shock for some, so here is an assortment of basic warnings.
- Unlike at Dartmouth, where never breathing fresh air on weekends is perfectly acceptable, you cannot avoid feeling guiltyduring an off-termif you don't leave your room and take advantage of every spare moment -- especially if you're like me and not working in finance for over 70 hours a week.
- Now that your movie theater options extend beyond the four-film repertoire of The Nugget, you may have to read a few reviews to decide what to spend your $13 on.
- Your toilets will no longer be magically cleaned every day and you're going to have to buy your own toilet paper (be specific with your preferences if a roommate is purchasing it, otherwise drama may ensue).
- Figuring out grocery money with roommates is complicated and unpleasant.
- KAF and the seemingly endless possibilities of $875 of DBA no longer exist, so it's time to learn how to make coffee at home! Daily Starbucks runs are most likely not feasible with your underpaid intern budget.
- Going on Bored at Baker may become strangely appealing: resist the temptation at all costs.
- You can't tell your boss you will blitz him or her.
Struggling to remain connected to Dartmouth may plague your first couple of weeks outside of Hanover --Dartmouth students who haven't stepped foot in Morano Gelato since freshman year find themselves salivating each morning at the flavors listed on Facebook, and those who scoffed at the idea of competing in Masters end up longing for just one pong game. You will likely feel hopelessly excluded when scrolling through 13F albums, and maybe feel a bit lonely and irrelevant when you're walking down the street and no one knows or cares who you are or what Greek house you're in.
But you'll move on (hopefully). There are probably at least a few other Dartmouth students or alums in your area, and this is your chance to relive freshman falland broaden your social circle -- you could even meet non-Dartmouth people (gasp). Either way, however connected you decide to remain with the Dartmouth sphere, eventually Baker-Berry will stop haunting your dreams and you'll establish a new set of favorite restaurants and reading spots that you'll desperately miss when you return to Hanover.
So whether you easily suffer from separation anxiety or cannot wait to live as a self-sufficient adult, taking an off-term can only be beneficial for your college career. It may make you love Dartmouth more or it may give you the distance needed to become healthily critical of it , it probably will do both, but it will certainly and most importantly give you a very small bit of leeway when your parents complain that you've never experienced the real world.